We live in dangerous times when our government is pursuing permanent wars in the name of human rights and democracy building. Theses claims do not hold up to the facts. The federal protections such as the FERPA Act to protect our children's privacy are not being enforced in our schools and the Pentagon gives the ASVAB test in many schools across the nation as a mandatory requirement when it is only voluntary. All of this is for data mining to then use for aggressive military recruitment of our youth, especially those from disadvantaged families. No one will protect our children but an informed public.

Consider being an activist parent, teacher, veteran, religious clergy, or student who wants a different kind of future for their lives and their community.  The health and ethical toll of permanent war in America is costing us all a sustainable and truly secure future. You have rights but you must first know what they are and then to insist upon them with misinformed school officials and military recruiters.

Use the following links to learn about your legal rights:

• For counter-recruiters
• For students
• For current military
• For DEP enlistees
• Materials/Training
• Student Press Law Center (archived) (Your First Amendment Rights)

###

Revised: 10-17-2019

Under various laws passed by the U.S. Congress (NCLB and the so-called Solomon Amendments), high schools and colleges that receive federal money are required to grant military representatives the same access to schools that is given to employer and college recruiters.

The laws only specify, however, that military representatives must be given the same access. Schools are not obligated, therefore, to grant military recruiters any type or frequency of access that is not enjoyed by college and employment recruiters. In recognition of this equal access mandate, some high school districts have passed policies that limit military recruiters in order to achieve balance.

Many high schools allow recruiters unfettered access to kids. The recruiters are often free to roam the hallways and "chill" with kids. On campus, they may perform the following functions:

• Career and academic counseling
• Coaching teams, conditioning athletes
• Providing interactive recruiting vans with shooting simulators
• Presentations to the Student Government, PTA and School Board
• Training the school color guard and facilitating flag raising/Pledge of Allegiance
• Helping with school registration
• Assuming a leading role in the homecoming parade
• Chaperoning at homecoming dance and other dances throughout the year
• Presenting reactionary views to history and government classes
• Attending home football games and officiating halftime football ceremonies
• Timekeeper
• Recruiter vs. Faculty basketball games
• On stage at graduation
• Security -- recruiters carry concealed weapons

Here are some recommended links available to better inform you as a parent. This is a work in progress and NNOMY will be adding new documents as they are prepared and as policies change that effect enlistment. Check back periodically.

Links:

• Counter-recruiter access
• Know Your Rights (including student equal access)
• Current policies and campaigns
• ASVAB
• JAMRS

Downloads:

• Información para padres - En español
• Know Before You Go, 'Cause There's No Reset Button
• Leave My Child Alone / Video on Military Recruitment Issues

Articles on the web:

• Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents
• Parents caught off guard by military recruiting policy (archived)
• Georgia Parents Fight Military High School
• Military Recruitment v. Right of Privacy (VIDEO)
• Hanson v. Rumsfeld (Challenging DOD military recruitment database of high school students) The Complaint (PDF)

##

Revised 10/15/2019

COUNTER RECRUITER ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS

Equal access refers to the lawful activity of countering military recruitment inside high schools. It is not the only way to reach and educate young people who are targeted for military recruitment, but it is an effective way to counter military recruitment where it is having a major impact.

Equal access for non-students is explained in the 1986 ruling in San Diego Committee v. Governing Board of Grossmont Union High School District [790 F.2d 1471 (9th Cir.1986)]. In simple terms, equal access rests on the principle that once a government agency creates a forum for expressive activity on a controversial topic, access to the forum can be limited only so long as it is reasonable and not a façade for viewpoint-based discrimination. If the presentation of one point of view has been allowed, the forum must also be opened to those with an opposing view on the same topic.

Key document: see “Using Equal Access to Counter Militarism in High Schools.”

The above document explains the following:

In the effort to counter the military in secondary schools, three main organizing models have developed:

· Educational activities organized in schools by students themselves (e.g. clubs and campaigns). Students have the right to speak out on issues in their schools whether or not the other side has already been presented. For more on students’ rights, including some legal limitations, see Guide to High School Students' Rights.

· Educational outreach conducted by students and/or non-students outside of official school channels (e.g. by leafleting on public property at school entrances). This does not require an equal access argument, though expressive activities on public property can be controlled by reasonable regulation.

· Attempts by non-students to get information to young people through the school system itself. This approach can sometimes require educating school personnel about the principle of equal access and forums on government property.

What triggers the right to equal access?

To establish equal access, an existing forum on the topic of military enlistment must be identified. Examples would be if military representatives were allowed to:

• Speak in classrooms or at assemblies,
• Place recruitment materials in career centers, counseling offices, libraries or on bulletin boards,
• Place ads in student newspapers,
• Staff information tables at career/college fairs or in lunch areas,
• Approach students in lunch areas, hallways, etc.,
• Visit the school with special mobile recruiting vehicles,
• Give the ASVAB test.

When these and other forums have been granted to military representatives, those with an opposing view have a legal right to the same access to students.

What speech content is allowed with equal school access?

· Speech content that fits within the specific topic of the forum that has been established is legally allowed; for example, explaining the possible negative consequences of military enlistment and realities of the job, including war.

· Distributing a general anti-war message or information that is not directly related to what recruiters are saying would technically be outside the forum and could possibly be excluded.

Should I use legal threats to gain access?

This is a very complicated question that cannot be answered easily here, except to say that the courts are generally willing to overlook our constitutional rights when it comes to defending the ability of the military to recruit. Those who have been doing this work for a long time—including some who have used litigation—have learned that it’s more effective to reach out to students in ways that avoid threats of litigation; for example, by going initially to teachers and counselors, or seeking to reach students outside of school, rather than going straight to administrators or governing boards. Read more about the reasons for this in “Using Equal Access…,” and contact Project YANO for advice from those who have been involved in litigation and also learned to gain access without it.

Resources

• The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth 2015 Back-to-school Kit for Counter-recruitment and School Demilitarization Organizing is available to assist you in understanding the work, your rights, and the challenges to return to the public schools to counter-recruit. Please visit this page and review the materials we have assembled for you and feel free to ask questions as well at Our Contact Page and we will do our best to answer you or your group in a timely manner.
  
  
• Using Equal Access to Counter Militarism in High Schools
• School District Policies Documents (archived)
• Ninth Circuit Court Ruling: Equal Access to High Schools (PDF) (archived)
• 'Counter-recruiters' shadowing the military
• Guide to High School Leafleting and Petitioning

 Revised 11/11/2019

WHAT IS IT?

The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) is a military program offered at approximately 3400 high schools around the country.¹ Its proponents consider it a “character development and citizenship program for youth”², and it’s often marketed as “leadership training.” Some of the subjects studied within JROTC include “lessons in leadership, health and wellness, physical fitness, first-aid, geography, American history and government, communications, and emotional intelligence.”³ Courses can also include lessons in drill training⁴ and marksmanship⁵.

 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Although supposedly not a recruitment program, military authorities have pointed out its success in boosting enlistment rates.⁶ The National Defense Act of 1920 was the first to make provisions for JROTC, its goal: “to raise awareness of military service and to encourage college-bound students to pursue a commission through ROTC.”⁷ Given that most high school students wouldn’t be attending college, the program aimed to “engender interest in military service at the enlistee level.”⁸ More recently, in the year 2000, the Chief of Staff at the Air Force, General Michael E. Ryan, made it apparent that the link between enlistment and JROTC participation has not gone unnoticed; he told a congressional committee that: “almost 50 percent of the folks that go … out of the Air Force Junior ROTC go into one of the services by enlisting or going to ROTC or going to one of the academies.”⁹

Despite being a century old, remarkably few longitudinal studies have been conducted on the effects JROTC has on enlistment, academic achievement, and other markers which the program purports to influence—a fact that has been noted by several researchers.^{10 11 12 13} The few studies that have been conducted suggest that the program is effective in increasing students’ (particularly female participants’) self-esteem.¹⁴ However, these studies also point toward negligible returns in academics and higher enlistment rates.^{15 16} The latter could be explained by the fact that students who enter the program may already be interested in pursuing a future military career. As Pema et al. point out, “…the larger enlistment effect obtained from fixed effects may be explained by program administrators selecting schools with higher enlistment propensities.”¹⁷ Given that most JROTC programs are located in predominantly poor, rural areas with a higher density of youth of color¹⁸, this is part of a trend displayed by the military’s recruitment strategy in which military benefits are posited as the only way out of poverty. This is reflected in the disproportionate amount of African Americanpeople enlisted in the military compared to their presence in the US population.¹⁹

One problem with this lies in the risks that a military career brings to young enlistees. A military career is wholly different from that of other types of careers, and young people need to be properly briefed about its dangers in order to truly make an informed decision. Because the military needs to constantly meet enlistment quotas driven by the various armed conflicts in which the US plays a part, information coming from either JROTC instructors, recruiters, and other military members frequently in contact with young people can be biased in order to encourage young people to enlist.

This, coupled the low academic benefits of the JROTC program, as well as its negligible effects on employment for non-military careers, beg the question: if the benefits of this program are higher self-esteem, leadership training, and belonging to a group of like-minded individuals, couldn’t these same benefits be reaped from other vocational programs?

 WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?

• Read the NNOMY Marksmanship guide to find out how to confront JROTC successfully!
• If you are concerned about a JROTC unit in your school, you can organize your community to lower its enrollment rates. This strategy is more advisable over publicly calling for a JROTC unit’s removal because this last strategy never succeeds; JROTC units tend to be removed due to low enrollment or budget cuts. Read this article to find out how activists’ organizing led to low enrollment rates.

Sources

1. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1712.html (2017)
2. http://www.usarmyjrotc.com/general/program_overview.php
3. Idem
4. http://www.militaryspot.com/resources/understanding-the-history-and-benefits-of-jrotc
5. https://thecmp.org/youth/jrotc-air-rifle-national-championship/national-championship-history/
6. Gross, W. (2017). THE ARMY RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS: A Hundred Years Old and Still Going Strong. On Point, 23(2), 6-13. doi:10.2307/26478334
7. Idem
8. Idem
9. https://www.startribune.com/junior-rotc-not-military-recruitment-but-quite-like-it/402778056/?refresh=true
10. Idem
11. Elda Pema, Stephen Mehay, Career effects of occupation-related vocational education: Evidence from the military's internal labor market, Economics of Education Review, Volume 31, Issue 5, 2012, Pages 680-693, ISSN 0272-7757, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2012.04.005.
12. Lutz, Catherine, and Lesley Bartlett. 1995. Making soldiers in the public schools. Philadelphia, PA: American Friends Service Committee.
13. Economic Journal, 76(2), 533-552. Retrieved May 14, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/27751481
14. Pérez, G. (2015). Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC, and the American Dream. NYU Press. Retrieved May 14, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt15zc6z2
15. Lutz, Catherine, and Lesley Bartlett. 1995. Making soldiers in the public schools. Philadelphia, PA: American Friends Service Committee.
16. Pema, E., & Mehay, S. (2009). The Effect of High School JROTC on Student Achievement, Educational Attainment, and Enlistment. Southern Economic Journal, 76(2), 533-552. Retrieved May 14, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/27751481
17. Idem
18. Idem
19. https://www.cfr.org/article/demographics-us-military

 Please consider becoming a $10 per month supporter of The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth
And our work to demilitarize our schools and youth.
Donate Here

###

Revised 10/11/2020

WHAT IS IT?

The Joint Advertising Market Research Studies (JAMRS) is a series of projects that seek to collect and buy information about the American public with the intent of formulating marketing and advertising strategies to aid in the military recruitment effort. It is in the service of the Department of Defense, as well as other government bodies, to a lesser extent.

The database created from this information contains data on about 30 million of young Americans 16-25 years old¹. This includes “name, date of birth, gender, mailing address, e-mail address, race and ethnicity, telephone number, high school name, graduation date, Grade Point Average, college intent, military interest, field of study, and the ASVAB Test score.”² Until 2006, it also collected Social Security Numbers. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed and subsequently won a lawsuit to prevent this from continuing to happen, and to reduce the time limit the data would remain in the system from five years to the current amount: three years.³

Aside from sending out polls to young people and “influencers” (meaning adults that are connected and can influence youth from 12 to 21 years old), JAMRS buys information from the DMV, College Board, the ASVAB test, and the Selective Service system, and others.⁴

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Framed within the larger debate on online privacy, JAMRS and its data collection is an affront to young people’s privacy rights; this detailed information is gathered almost exclusively without their or their parent’s knowledge and consent, and the mechanisms for opting out are not clearly communicated to them.

This data is then used to shape recruitment strategies for the military, targeting young people of certain races or ethnicities. This is reflected by the overrepresentation of black and latinxs in the military compared to US society as a whole.⁵ People of certain socio-economic backgrounds are also targeted, as is evidenced by the different benefits the armed forces place front and center of their reasons to enlist: scholarships for college, job training, and eventual VA benefits.

The marketing, advertising, and recruitment strategies can often paint a misleading picture of what being in the US Armed Forces is like, glossing over the physical, psychological, and emotional dangers that enlisted members are subject to.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• If you’re 18 years old, you can opt out by filling this form (courtesy of the New York Civil Liberties Union) and send it out to the following address (the JAMRS headquarters), your information will be inaccessible to recruiters and remain sealed in the suppression file. If you’re younger than 18, ask your parents to fill out the form and send it to the following address.

Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies (JAMRS)
4800 Mark Center Drive, Suite 06J25
Alexandria, VA 22350-4000

• If you are a parent, guardian, or know a person between 16 to 21 years of age, you can give them the opt-out form. If they have expressed an interest in joining the military, you can also direct them to the Winning the Peace website, which contains information about the military often missing from recruitment material.
• Spread the word! Tell other people in your school, other parents and guardians or write to your local or school paper. Most people are unaware of the information that JAMRS has collected on them, and deserve to at least make a choice on whether or not that is something they want the US military to have.
• Hand out opt out forms, or ask school authorities (teachers, the principal, counselors) to hand them out.

Sources

¹ https://www.nyclu.org/en/information-about-jamrs-database
² https://www.nyclu.org/en/joint-advertising-market-research-studies-jamrs
³ Idem
⁴ Idem
⁵ https://www.cfr.org/article/demographics-us-military

References

• JAMRS - U.S. Department of Defense - https://jamrs.defense.gov/
• U.S. Army: March To Success - https://www.march2success.com/
  
• U.S. Department of Education: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) - https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
• FAS: Military Recruitment on High School and College Campuses: A Policy and Legal Analysis - https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R40827.pdf

Articles

• Counterpunch: Pentagon Database Leaves No Child Alone - https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/02/04/pentagon-database-leaves-no-child-alone/
• The Washington Post: Recruitment Tool Targeted - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2005/10/18/recruitment-tool-targeted/6f55712b-4458-4533-a058-0525f52b8ac7/
• Rethinking Schools: Stealth Recruiting - https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/stealth-recruiting/
• Democracy Now: Back to School: Military Recruiters Increasingly Targeting High School Teens - https://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/4/back_to_school_military_recruiters_increasingly
  

##

Revised 03/23/2023