Y&M Magazine - Proposed Law Would Force High Schools to Assist Recruiters

Proposed Federal Law Would Force High Schools to Assist Military Recruiters

Pentagon lobbies Congress to force schools to grant them greater access to students. Bill would strip schools of local control. Recruiting officials mislead Congress.

by Harold Jordan 1 | 2

If a new bill in the U.S. Senate becomes law, local school districts would be coerced into granting military recruiters greater access to high school students. The provision is contained in the Senate version of the Defense Authorization Act for FY01 (S2549, sec. 553) scheduled for a vote by the full Senate in June of 2000. Masquerading as an "equal access" rule – granting recruiters the same access as post-secondary schools and potential employers – the proposed law is an effort to establish a guaranteed right of access to students by military recruiters.

The proposed law is not an "equal access" provision. It fails to recognize the fact that military recruiters typically have a greater degree of access to schools than any outside group or agency. The bill would largely remove decision-making authority about such matters from individual school and district administrators, making it a subject of a political negotiation between the school board, the Pentagon, and pro-military elected officials. It is also intended to override the effect of local and state anti-discrimination policies. School officials would find it much harder to protect students from harassment and coercion by military recruiters.

What the Proposed Law Says

What is "directory information?"
Directory information includes such information as name, address, home phone number, grade level, and extracurricular activities. It does not include grades or transcripts.

The proposed legislation contains several major provisions:

Local school districts would be required to grant recruiting authorities access to students and "directory information" if it provides such access to post-secondary institutions or prospective employers.
Local districts may deny access only if the majority of its governing board (school board or control board for districts that have been taken over by governmental entities) votes to do so.
The law would apply to public and private schools.
School districts that deny recruiters the requested forms of access would then be subjected to a political process where senior recruiting officials would take a number of progressive measures to pressure the district into complying. They include: dispatching senior recruiting officials to meet with district officials; requesting the assistance of the governor; and reporting the non-compliance to federal legislators (members of Congress representing that district and to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees).

The Political Context

This legislation is an outgrowth of six months of intense Congressional lobbying by recruiting officials. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee in February 2000, the recruiting chiefs for the services identified resistance from "anti-military" school officials as a significant impediment to the recruiting effort. Officials complained that the services are being singled out for discrimination.

Describing what they call an "institutional bias against the military," Lieutenant General Jack Klimp and Major General Garry L. Parks of the Marines offered the following testimony before Congress on February 24, 2000.

Typically the military has "unequal access": it has greater access to schools than any outside institution.

"Our recruiters are not only experiencing a decline in access to directory information, but in many cases are being forced out of schools by local educational policy. While a certain school district may have an overt 'support the military' policy, the districts themselves often allow their individual high school administrators to be more restrictive, and it is they who deny the access and lists, school by school. Some allow access, but will not provide directory information; others provide lists but not access to students on campus."

Criticism of educators for pushing the college option is a recurring theme of this campaign. Air Force Staff Sergeant Reggie Hamilton, a recruiter in Georgia, testified that military recruiters have trouble in some schools because counselors are pushing students to attend college. In October 1999 testimony before the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, Marine Corps Master Sergeant John Bailey stated, "Our war starts at the school." "Counselors would rather sell college."

The Pentagon released information to the Senate Armed Services Committee claiming that recruiters had been barred from schools in 19,000 incidents in 1999 and that 2,000 public high schools have policies barring military recruiters. This lobbying effort is designed to gain Congressional support for coercive measures such as the bill proposes and for its $2.2 billion funding request for recruitment of military personnel in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 budget, an increase of $400 million over FY99.

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