From Draft NOtices, October-December 2023
- Rick Jahnkow
On August 29, 2023, the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education approved a resolution that, effectively, bans the enrollment of any student in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program without first obtaining fully informed consent from the student and a parent or legal guardian.
The impetus for proposing the resolution came from a front-page New York Times article published in December 2022, titled, "Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed Into Military's Junior R.O.T.C." Enrollment data obtained by The Times indicated that some San Diego high schools were among those that were automatically placing students in the program.
Community groups in San Diego did further research and received confirmation that hundreds of students at one inner-city school were being automatically enrolled in JROTC. The groups contacted the school district and asked for action to end the practice. They pointed out that, according to The Times, involuntary placement in JROTC appeared to be taking place at schools "attended by a large proportion of nonwhite students and those from low-income households." They also noted that automatic JROTC enrollment at San Diego schools was in violation of section 51750 of the California Education Code, which states that "no student . . . shall be required to enroll in any course in military science and tactics."
The resolution adopted by the school board was largely based on a draft written by the groups protesting involuntary JROTC enrollment. It establishes that no student may be enrolled in the program without first obtaining “fully informed consent” from the student and a parent or guardian. Furthermore, the form used to elicit such consent must identify the military nature of the program and include "a complete and accurate description of the program's requirements and expectations that are imposed on students." Previously, the district's JROTC office produced a so-called consent form that contains no such information, thus the community groups in San Diego will be demanding that the district adopt an entirely new form that meets the standards established by the adopted board resolution.
Groups that were key to getting the resolution passed included the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (Project YANO), Association of Raza Educators, and the San Diego Chicano/Latino Concilio on Higher Education. The National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force also sent a letter to the school board seeking assurance that "no high school student is ever required by the SDUSD to participate involuntarily in any way in the JROTC program."
For more information on the San Diego JROTC-related campaign, write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/).
