Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2008

— Paula Hoffman
    

Crawford High School, 900 Building; Hoover High, 800 Building; Lincoln High, Room 1416; Madison High, Room 206; Mission Bay High, Room 162; Serra High, Room 415; Morse High, JROTC Room. If you would like to see San Diego high school students learning to use guns, these are the locations of some of the shooting ranges on our campuses.

The San Diego community at large, grassroots organizations, parents, teachers and students all understand the absurdity of having weapons training on San Diego high school campuses. Readers of this article undoubtedly recognize the same. Amazingly, the San Diego Board of Education does not see the contradiction in enforcing “zero tolerance” while at the same time promoting target practice. Or is it that they are too afraid to enforce the zero-tolerance principle when it comes to a military-sponsored program? Eleven out of the thirteen San Diego high schools with JROTC have weapons training programs. And these gun ranges are not located at police or military facilities, but rather on public high school grounds!

Since its formation in October 2007, the Education Not Arms Coalition (ENAC) has campaigned for the removal of weapons training from all San Diego City schools. In response, it has been hearing outrageous justifications for the shooting ranges from the Board and JROTC instructors. “It’s an Olympic sport.” “It helps with stress levels and teaches concentration.” “Students can get scholarships just like in any school sport.” Do they really seriously believe these absurd rationalizations?

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2008

— Mernie Aste
    

Following a recent vote by the San Francisco School Board, students in San Francisco can no longer get physicaleducation credit for the military’s JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps). The San Francisco Chronicle states, “The 4-1 vote will likely cripple the 90-year-old military education program that serves 1,200 students because most use it to satisfy their PE requirement.” Cadets currently in JROTC attended the meeting in uniforms to show their support for the program. San Francisco School Board member Norman Yee was quoted as saying, “This is an emotional issue for many people.”

Within that same month, the Long Beach Board of Education unanimously decided to no longer count JROTC (along with dance, drill team and marching band) toward meeting P.E. graduation requirements; while the California Department of Education has required that P.E. classes address all state standards and be taught by teachers with P.E. credentials.

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2008

— Rick Jahnkow
    

A new bill in the California legislature could, if passed, set a major precedent at the state level for protecting students from aggressive military recruiting. Assembly Bill 2994, the Student and Family Privacy Protection Act of 2008, was introduced on February 22, 2008, by Assembly members Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View) and Loni Hancock (D-East SF Bay).

AB 2994 would accomplish two main goals: (1) make it easier for students and parents to opt out from the contact lists that high schools must give to recruiters; and (2) put an end to the military’s practice of using the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test to extract detailed personal information about students.

The opt-out portion of the proposed law repeats language from a previous bill that passed the state legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in October of 2006. It addresses the problem of schools not adequately informing students and parents about their right to withhold information when lists of students’ names, addresses and phone numbers are released to military recruiters. Because of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, federal law threatens schools with the loss of federal education dollars if they do not release such lists, but the same law also says that individual students and their parents must be given a chance to opt out.

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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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