Truth in Military Recruiting
Purpose
Activities
Sources of information
How you can help
Packet for students to "opt
out" from being recruited
Opt out form if you are already getting recruiting mail.
Form to get out of the military's recruiting
database
To empower people to make an informed choice about enlisting in the armed forces by providing information military recruiters do not offer, countering misinformation they may offer, and pointing out alternative pathways to higher education and job training.
The work currently is focused on students and their parents.
- Making sure that school districts and individual high schools fulfill their legal obligation under the No Child Left Behind Act to give students the option of asking their schools not to send information about them to military recruiters.
- Encouraging student peace clubs to adopt Truth in Recruiting as a project, to invite speakers on the subject, and to disseminate literature.
- Disseminating Truth in Recruiting literature, including alternatives to military service, in schools directly or by making them available to students to distribute.
- Establishing a Truth in Recruiting website on MySpace created and maintained by young people and oriented to their peers.
- Getting information into the hands of parents.
There are websites maintained by national organizations with highly useful information about misinformation and significant omissions in recruiting sales pitches, realities of military life, conscientious objection to military service, and rights of students who want to do Truth in Recruiting work in their schools.
- Leave My Child Alone Campaign http://themmob.org/lmca/. A family privacy campaign of Working Assets, Mainstreet Moms, and ACORN to protect high school students from unwanted military recruiting. Offers the easiest access to such tools as opt-out forms for individuals and schools, flyers, fact sheets, and Truth in Recruiting kits. It's all accessible from the home page.
- American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/ AFSC's Youth and Militarism Program works to reduce the impacts of war and military institutions on young people's lives. This site offers so much to everyone affected by the military and military recruitment that it's worth exploring at length. Among its riches is information about how our schools are being militarized, what recruiters don't tell, conscientious objection, and alternative pathways to higher education and the workplace. Also, it offers for purchase low-cost DVDs and brochures such as "Do You Know Enough to Enlist?" that are useful both to individuals trying to make a decision and Truth in Recruiting activists wishing to disseminate information.
- Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors http://www.objector.org/recruiting.html CCCO's Military Out of Our Schools Campaign works with local community members nationwide to restrict recruiter access to schools and to gain equal counter-recruiter access. The site is heavily youth-oriented. On the home page there are links to four youth-created sites on MySpace and YouTube. The campaign also publishes a youth-created magazine and DVD called AWOL, as well as The Objectors, an adult magazine. There are three eye-catching counter-recruitment posters offered for sale.
- New York Civil Liberties Union http://milrec.nyclu.org "The NYCLU's Project on Military Recruitment and Students' Rights seeks to give students, families, educators, and advocates the tools to defend their rights against intrusive military recruiting." Very user-friendly. There are answers to questions about laws governing recruiting and counter recruiting. There is eye-opening information about how the military goes about recruiting. The site even offers downloadable copies of the manuals and Power Point presentations the military branches use to instruct their recruiters, including how to approach African Americans and Hispanics. One section of the site is geared specifically to students and the actions they can take to protect themselves and their fellow students.
- Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft http://www.comdsd.org/youth.htm Resources for students in relation to the draft, military alternatives, protest, and military recruitment in school. Check out their offering of flyers (downloadable for free), brochures, buttons, bumper stickers, etc.
- War Resisters League http://www.warresisters.org/youth/ WRL's Youth and Countermilitarism Campaign is oriented to counter-recruitment activists, especially young activists. The site offers an organizers' manual called "DMZ: A Guide to Taking Your School Back from the Military." Site visitors can join the DMZ Network, which provides local youth organizers with the materials, resources, and training needed to effectively challenge recruiters on their own terms. After you sign up on-line, WRL will get you connected with counter recruitment activists in your area and send you a DMZ starter kit.
- Project on Youth and Non-Military Alternatives (YANO) http://www.projectyano.org/ The reason to visit this site is to download for free some brochures that are created specifically for students. Almost all of them are available in both English and Spanish.
- Military Free Zone http://www.militaryfreezone.org/ Run by Underground Action Alliance, this site doesn't offer anything special in content. However, the style of its presentation and the materials it offers (such as stickers and posters) will appeal to young people into various forms of counter-cultural self-expression.
Young people
- Help yourself. If you're thinking of enlisting, learn as much as you can about what you'll be contracting for. Think of military recruiters as used car salesmen. They are under pressure to make their quotas, and they aren't required to be scrupulous about doing so. If you've already decided not to enlist and want the recruiters to back off, use the forms on-line. If you exercise your legal right to ask your high school not to send information about you to recruiters, be sure to use an op-out form that also states you DO want the school to send your information to college recruiters and potential employers. [School opt out form]
- If you are directly (by mail, for example) receiving recruiting information, that means you are already in the JAMRS Database-a massive registry of 30 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 25 for military recruitment purposes. You can opt out, using the form provided on this site. [JAMRS opt out form] " Help others. You have the legal right to distribute Truth in Recruiting literature to fellow students as long as you don't interfere with the normal operations of your school. You can put up materials like posters in your schools wherever recruiters are posting theirs. You can also invite outside speakers during those times when invited speakers are welcome in your school. For a speaker, contact the local chapter of Veterans for Peace at 281-414-1386 or sanjacsec@yahoo.com. If you think your school is restricting your First Amendment rights as you go about your Truth in recruiting activities, contact HPJC's Truth in Recruiting Project at 713-661-9889 or bhenschen@msn.com.
Parents
- Help your own children. You may be in a better position than they are to consider all the factors of a wise decision regarding enlistment. They may be more easily persuaded by the glorification of military life, and more likely not to do their homework about what enlistment entails. Inform yourself, then talk things over with them even before they bring up the subject. Offer to accompany them to the recruitment office if they want to go, and ask the recruiter the questions your son or daughter may not know to ask. Also, you can assure your children of your support as they seek other pathways to higher education and job placement.
- Help your school. Make sure your school administration is meeting its legal obligations to provide students their opt-out opportunity and to disseminate information to other students. Use the opt-out packet below to get your district supervisor or high school principal to follow the law. [School opt out form]
- Work through your PTA. Give information to other parents. Ask the PTA to become a watchdog against unscrupulous recruiting practices and militarization of the schools, such as permanent recruiting presences in school cafeterias.
Teachers
- Help your students. Make sure your school administration is meeting its legal obligations to provide students their opt-out opportunity and to disseminate information to other students. Use the materials in the school opt-out packet below to get the information you need to talk to your principal. . [School opt out form]
- Do Truth in Recruiting work yourself. If your high school doesn't literature in its library and counselor's office, contact HPJC's Truth in Recruiting Project at 713-661-9889 or bhenschen@msn.com. We can furnish small racks and periodically restock them.
- Work with a student club. Every school should have a Peace Club. Truth in Recruiting would be an excellent project.
- Let HPJC's Truth in Recruiting Project know when your school will have its Career Days so we can have a presence there. Call 713-661-9889.
Everyone
- Inform yourself so you can talk with others on this subject. " Contact Truth in Recruiting Project at 713-661-9889 to volunteer to maintain literature racks in high schools, hand out literature at appropriate places, and suggest other ways you could help.
Parents and High School Students: Is Your School Breaking the Law?
Is it giving you a chance to "opt out" of the school's practice of sending information on students to military recruiters?
Did you know that the federal No Child Left Behind Act requires every high school to make that choice available in a timely fashion to its students? Even so, many school districts are ignoring their legal obligation.
Opting out will not mean that the school can't send your information to college recruiters and employers.
Use this packet to assert your right to opt out. It contains:
- A sample letter to your school district administration or high school principal explaining the legal obligations under No Child Left Behind and also regarding Truth in Recruiting information distribution by student volunteers. The sample is provided for convenience only. Change it any way you want to say what you wish its recipient to hear.
- The relevant excerpt from the No Child Left Behind Act
- A form in English and in Spanish to opt out of military recruiter contacts and still opt in to contacts by college and job recruiters.
- Opt out form if you are already getting recruiting mail.
Sample letter to the supervisor of your independent school district or to your high school principal
Date
Name Title Address
Dear ______,
This letter is prompted by my concern that, in regard to military recruiting, [XISD/X high school] fulfills its legal obligations to protect the privacy of its students and give them a chance to make a well-informed decision about enlisting in the armed services.
I have a number of requests to make, and would like to meet with you to talk about them. I will call your office shortly to make an appointment.
Request 1
[XISD/X high school] fulfill its obligations under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to allow students to opt out of having information about them sent to military recruiters. As you know, NCLB requires you to provide such information on students 17 years or older if military recruiters request it, but it also requires the following:
A secondary school student or the parent of the students may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing . . . may not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request. [Title 20, United States Code, Section 7908(a)(2).]
Please note that the use of the word "shall" requires school administrators to provide timely notification, which would be at the beginning of the school year when the military might request information. Since there may be 17-year-old students in every high school grade, it is important to provide an opt-out request form to all your high school students at the beginning of every school year.
As an educator, you don't wish students who choose to opt out of military recruitment to lose their opportunities to be contacted by college and employment recruiters. So the OPT OUT form you use should also provide an opportunity to OPT IN to non-military recruiters. I have enclosed a model form you might consider using.
Request 2
You do not interfere with students who wish to inform their schoolmates about certain aspects of military enlistment and military life that military recruiters don't mention. There are recognized restrictions on students' free speech activity, such as reasonable times and places to insure that it doesn't interfere with the primary educational mission of the school. Nonetheless, ever since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), school authorities have been legally obligated to acknowledge the First Amendment rights of their students. In this regard we would ask that
a. Students be allowed to pass out literature regarding truth in recruiting and non-military options in areas like the school halls, cafeterias, and school yards.
b. Recognized student organizations be allowed to have programs, including outside speakers, on these and related topics.
c. If military recruiters use school bulletin boards or walls to post information, sign-up forms, etc., students wishing to provide information regarding truth in recruiting and non-military options be allowed to use the same spaces.1
Request 3
In the interest of fairness, and to assure that your students can make well-informed choices regarding military enlistment, we ask that you allow truth in recruiting volunteers to have the same access to your students that military recruiters have. In this regard, we ask that
a. At your career programs, such volunteers be allowed to table.1
b. If military recruiters have an on-going presence in your school, such as a station in the cafeteria, then volunteers be given the same opportunity to be present.
You may already be doing all or some of the things I have requested in this letter. Nonetheless, as I mentioned above, I will give you a call shortly to set up an appointment to discuss these matters.
Respectfully yours,
Your name
1 It might be argued that military recruiters are merely offering career opportunities, and thus information urging that military recruitment offers be carefully scrutinized are not equivalent. The Grossmont Union High School District in San Diego, California made that very argument when it refused to run a paid ad by the San Diego Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD) in the school paper even though the paper accepted ads from the military. But that argument was rejected in federal court, and the school district was ordered to either exclude or accept both (San Diego Committee Against Registration and the Draft v The Governing Board of the Grossmont Union High School District, 1986)
Military Recruiting and the No Child Left Behind Act Military recruiters can and do approach high schools and ask for lists of students' names, addresses and telephone numbers, and unless an individual student or parent tells the school in writing that it may not release the student's information, the school must hand it over. The recruiters' authority to obtain this information comes from NCLB and NDAA, which require that schools disclose student names, addresses and telephone numbers (sometimes called "directory information") to the military on request. But these laws also gives students and parents the right to tell the school not to give students' information to recruiters without "prior parental approval"--in other words, without going back and asking the parent again. The part of NCLB requiring schools to hand over directory information is as follows: [E]ach local educational agency receiving assistance … shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters … access to secondary school students' names, addresses, and telephone listings. Title 20, United States Code, Section 7908(a)(1). Note that information is limited to what is specified. Social Security numbers, for example, are not to be given over. The part of NCLB giving students and parents the right to have a student's directory information withheld is as follows: A secondary school student or the parent of the students may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing … may not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request. Title 20, United States Code, Section 7908(a)(2).
PROHIBITING RELEASE OF STUDENT NAME, ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER TO MILITARY RECRUITERS OR MILITARY PERSONNEL
Our school may be asked to provide the names and addresses of high school students to military recruiters. I opt not to participate in this program.
Please do not disclose my contact information to the U.S. Military without the prior permission of my parents.
I ? do ? do not want my information withheld from educational institutions and other job recruiters as well.
Date ________________
Student's Name _________________________________
Student's Signature _________________________________
PROHIBIENDO ENTREGUE DEL NOMBRE, DOMICILIO Y EL NUMERO DE TELEFONO DE ESTUDIANTE A LOS RECLUTADORES MILITARES
Reclutadores militares pueden pedir el nombre, domicilio y el numero de telefono de cada estudiante en nuestra escuela. No quiero participar en esta programa.
Por favor no divulgue mi información a los reclutadores militares sin la autorización de mis padres.
Quiero ? no quiero ? prohibir que mi información sea entregado a universidades y otros reclutadores tambien.
Fecha ________________
Nombre del estudiante _________________________________
Firma del estudiante _________________________________
Already getting recruiting literature through the mail? Then you are in the military's recruiting database. But you can get out. Use this form:
[Date]
Joint Advertising and Marketing Research & Studies Direct Marketing Program Officer Attention: Opt Out 4040 North Fairfax Drive, Ste. 200 Arlington, VA 22203-1613
Dear Direct Marketing Program Officer:
Please remove all information and data regarding the following individual from the JAMRS military recruitment database:
Full Name: [First Name Last Name] Date of Birth: [MM/DD/YYYY] Address: [Street Number, Apartment Number] City: [City] State: [State] Zip:[ZIP Code]
I believe that the JAMRS database is an intrusion into my family's privacy and the Department of Defense should not be compiling this information.
Signature: ________________________________ Date: ______________ (parent or legal guardian if individual is a minor; individual him/herself if 18 or over).