Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2014


LETTERS NEEDED!
    

After failing five previous times, the Selective Service System is again asking the California state legislature to pass a bill linking Selective Service registration to California drivers’ licenses. California’s large population has one of the lowest SS registration compliance rates in the country, which could complicate any future attempt to resort to forced military service.

Proposed by Assembly member Rocky Chávez (R-Oceanside), Assembly Bill 2201 seeks to use DMV records to automatically register males with Selective Service when they apply for a license or license renewal (it does not include DMV-issued ID cards). The bill passed the Assembly Committee on Transportation on APRIL 21. As of April 21 it was waiting to be given a hearing by the appropriations committee. If it survives that committee, it would require an assembly floor vote before going through a similar committee process in the state senate.

The last time this proposal was introduced in California (SB 251 in 2011), an amended version was approved by the transportation committee and then, like all the others, allowed to die when it was held in suspension by the appropriations committee.

ACTION CALIFORNIANS CAN TAKE: As of this update (April 21), the bill was waiting for its hearing in the Assembly appropriations committee.  Letters to that committee are needed. We’ve included a set of talking points below to consider when writing to legislators. NOTE: Send faxes, if possible, since mail is now slowed by capitol security checks. Write to:

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2014

— Libby Frank
    

Ames Middle School for 7th and 8th grade students is located in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. It’s a predominantly Latino working-class community. The school was built in 1998 after extensive pressure from the community to relieve overcrowding.

Sometime in 2012 Roberto Maldonado, the alderman for the ward that includes Ames, visited the school as principal for a day. Apparently the students were a bit rowdy (they are 7th and 8th graders, after all). He claims they were flashing gang signs, so he decided that the school should be turned into a military academy.

For months there was some back and forth on this proposal, but on December 18, 2013, the school board (which is appointed by the mayor, by the way) voted 5 to 2 in favor of turning Ames into a Marine academy. In the meantime the Ames community (teachers, parents, students, residents) conducted several surveys among the parents and students that showed that the community overwhelmingly wanted to keep Ames a neighborhood school. Undaunted by the school board’s decision, the community launched a petition drive to get a referendum on the spring ballot. The question presented to voters was: “Should Ames Middle School (1920 North Hamlin Ave) be maintained as a neighborhood school, rather than being converted into a military school?”

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2014

LETTERS NEEDED!

— Isidro Ortiz, PhD
    

Russia’s recent deployment of military forces into Crimea has precipitated talk about a “new cold war.” Those of us who lived through the old cold war may recall that it was an era of unchecked militarism in which challenges to expansion of military influence often did not meet with success. Obscured by the specter of the new ideological and political struggle was a recent setback for militarism and at least a temporary victory for efforts to curb the intrusion and influence of the military in the public schools of California. (See update at bottom.)

On February 14, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing rejected a proposal to amend Title 5 of the California Education Code. The proposal would have established a special authorization for holders of Designated Subjects Teaching Credentials in Basic Military Drill and Reserve Officer Training Corps. The defeated change would have authorized military instructors, usually retired members of the armed forces, to teach physical education in California high schools. The former military personnel would be exempt from holding a bachelor’s degree, the minimum degree usually held by public high school teachers and a prerequisite to earning a teaching credential in California, and could obtain a “special authorization” by way of passing a state test focused on subject content. As reported by Meredith Adams of EdSource, “JROTC and military drill are high school electives that use Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard curriculum covering fitness, leadership activities, civics and U.S. History, among other topics. California has 350 JROTC high school programs, each with a minimum of 100 students. The rule change also would have affected instructors in the California Cadet Corps program who a hold a credential to teach ROTC or military drill.”

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Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING: CONFRONTING MILITARISM BY USING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS

When the military comes to your local high school, you have a legal right to give students an opposing view. This has been the position taken by federal district courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois and two federal appellate courts. The most broadly-worded decision came from a case that COMD took to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Here is the background:

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