From Draft NOtices, May - June 2000
- Ken Larsen, Friends Committee on Legislation of Calif.
Most Californians probably don’t know that our state has an agency called the "Military Department" and that it is slated for a 58% budget increase in these times of peace and prosperity. Traditionally, the Military Department’s job has been to manage the California Army and Air National Guard, the state’s reserve forces for times of war, insurrection and disaster.
But Governor Gray Davis has come up with a new mission for the state’s military. He wants the National Guard not only to prepare for catastrophe, but also to take over the education of difficult young people.
The governor’s 2000-2001 fiscal year budget asks the legislature to approve $10.5 million in funding for two new paramilitary training institutions. Both the Turning Point Academy and the Oakland Military Academy set dangerous and wasteful policy precedents.
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)
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:
