From Draft NOtices, April-June 2022
--Isidro Ortiz, PHD
The history of the movement for ethnic studies in California and elsewhere continues to be contentious and dynamic. That it has been and continues to be is not surprising, for as noted in an earlier Draft NOtices article, there is much at stake, including the possibility of students developing a critical consciousness that might pave the way for the questioning of militarism.
Since the last article on this topic in Draft NOtices, there have been two developments in California that are worthy of notice. First, due to a lawsuit settlement, in January the California Department of Education decided to “excise” two affirmations from the California model ethnic studies curriculum. These were the “In Lak’ech Affirmation” and the “Ashe Affirmation.” The actions were in response to litigation brought by the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation. In September 2021, the Foundation and three parents from San Diego accused the state of violating provisions of the California Constitution relating to religion, specifically Article 1, Section 4, and article XVI Section 5. The Department decided to accept settlement “in order to avoid the costs, expense and uncertainty of protracted litigation.”
In the aftermath of the settlement, Frank Xu, president of the Foundation, declared in a San Diego Union-Tribune commentary that the foundation was “not categorically opposed to the idea of teaching ethnic studies in state classrooms” and supported a “balanced and constructive ethnic studies course, to the extent that such lessons add to the general education value for our K-12 students.” But, he said, “That has not been the case with the ethnic studies model curriculum. Or the more popularized liberated ethnic studies, both steeped in critical pedagogy.”
Xu declared that the lawsuit had only challenged the prayer components of the “In Lak’ech” and “Ashe” affirmations. He complained that “the education establishment has not lost momentum in promoting an ideologically charged version of ethnic studies. But, at least, the removal of the two chants moved the state closer in alignment with our constitutional principles of equal treatment and no religious endorsement.”
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)
Later this year, the public will have online access to an extensive digitized collection of materials documenting the history of grassroots anti-militarism organizing by the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (originally named San Diego CARD). The collection consists of materials from 10 scrapbooks covering the late 1970s through 1987, plus every issue of our newsletter, Draft Notices, from 1980 through 2021.
The digitized materials are being hosted online by the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Digitization was done manually by COMD, with help from Project YANO, and took a year to complete. Approximately 4,000 pages were scanned to create 1,064 PDF files.
The types of documents in the collection will include such items as fliers, memos, news releases and clippings, meeting agendas, brochures and photographs. All the documents will be accessible to Internet search engines.
When the collection is fully uploaded and annotated at UMass, COMD will share its online link. It’s worth noting that the COMD collection will be in the company of the papers of such notable individuals as W.E.B. Du Bois and Daniel Ellsberg.
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/index.php/draft-notices).
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From Draft NOtices, January-March 2022
The Israeli “Refusers”
— Paula Hoffman-Villanueva
When Israeli children play with toy soldiers, it’s not just a game, a fantasy or an aspiration. It is a fact of life that they will serve in the military, usually right after high school. When children hear stories from family members about their time in the military, it is not just from a father or one aunt or cousin. Nearly all (male and female) adult family members have stories to tell about their time in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). There are exemptions for Orthodox Jews, the mentally or physically unqualified, young mothers, Arab Israelis, and a few others, but it is rare for a citizen to be deemed a conscientious objector. To seek CO status in Israeli society is considered the ultimate betrayal and a process that will bring certain suffering to the individual.
The IDF is commonly referred to as “The People’s Army.” It is required service, a rite of passage, one’s patriotic duty. For a young person to question this obligation is truly an act of courage, and with it comes the knowledge that s/he will be shunned by family, peers and society. The typical labels are used: coward, traitor, extremist, deviant, gibush (someone who doesn’t pull their weight). When a family member is an identified refuser or refusenik (savarim in Hebrew), the entire family suffers community scorn.
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:
