YAA and military recruitment in the press

Youth Activists of Austin hasn't been especially active this summer, but YAA and military recruitment have come up recently in the local and national media, respectively. Here are some links and choice excerpts:

• AISD: Students Rein in Military Recruiters, Austin Chronicle July 7
  

  The phrase "No Child Left Behind" takes on a particularly Orwellian undertone when you consider that the sweeping education law requires schools to allow the military to recruit on campus. Uniformed visitors are a regular sight at all 11 AISD high schools, where they try to sell students on a career that can bring college tuition dollars and an early retirement – or (generally left unmentioned) an early death... She and her fellow concerned students, known collectively as Youth Activists of Austin, contacted the elder peaceniks at Nonmilitary Options for Youth, and together they pressured AISD into passing an official military recruiting policy. The policy, adopted by the board on June 12, is so tame that it's actually a bit alarming that students considered it necessary. It essentially requires that recruiters will act like any other school visitors. They must check in at the front office, get a visitor's badge, and recruit in a designated area. And they will leave students alone who make it clear they aren't interested.

• SERGANT, GET A HALL PERMIT, Texas Observer June 30

  When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, it added a particularly onerous, little-known provision that requires high schools to release student names to the military. The Pentagon has used such sensitive information as grades, ethnicity, Social Security numbers, cell phone numbers, and e-mail addresses to create a database of 30 million young people. Although they can’t change federal law, a group of activist students has managed to convince the Austin Independent School District to place limits on military recruiting at AISD campuses. The new guidelines, which take effect in the fall, will establish uniform (so to speak) rules for on-campus recruiting. From now on, recruiters will have to check in at the principal’s office, pick up a visitor’s badge, and limit their recruiting to designated areas. Overzealous military recruiters (and the principals who have been happy to accommodate them) are not to contact students who have made it clear that they don’t want to be contacted. Parents will be notified of their right to ask the school not to release their children’s names. School district trustees have also called for information about alternatives to the military to be readily available to students.

And, turmoil in the messy, discriminatory world of military recruitment:

• [Increase in] Misconduct by Military Recruiters Cited, Associated Press
  

  Military recruiters have increasingly resorted to overly aggressive tactics and even criminal activity to attract young troops to the battlefield, congressional investigators say.

  Grueling combat conditions in Iraq, a decent commercial job market and tough monthly recruiting goals have made recruiters' jobs more difficult, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. This has probably prompted more recruiters to resort to strong-arm tactics, including harassment or criminal means such as falsifying documents, to satisfy demands, GAO states.

  The report was done at the behest of lawmakers who were concerned that not enough was being done to curb aggressive recruitment practices.

  "Even one incident of recruiter wrongdoing can erode public confidence in the recruiting process," the GAO warned.

  According to service data provided to the GAO, substantiated cases of wrongdoing jumped by more than a third, from about 400 cases in 2004 to almost 630 in 2005. Meanwhile, criminal cases — such as sexual harassment or falsifying medical records — more than doubled in those years, jumping from 30 incidents to 70.

  There are some 22,000 personnel working for the military's recruiting program, which cost more than $1.5 billion this year. On staff are some 14,000 "frontline" recruiters who must enlist two applicants per month.

  "Given the large numbers of service members DOD must recruit every year, there is ample opportunity for recruiter irregularities to occur," the report said, using the acronym for the Department of Defense.

• Military's Discharges for Being Gay Rose in '05, New York Times
  

  The Defense Department discharged 726 service members last year for being gay, up about 10 percent from 2004, figures released by a gay rights group show.
  
  The group, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Act request. A spokeswoman for the Defense Department, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, confirmed that it had released the information.
  
  On Monday, the legal group released a breakdown of discharges by installation. A sharp increase occurred at Fort Campbell, Ky., where in 1999 a soldier was bludgeoned to death in his barracks by fellow soldiers who thought he was homosexual. In 2004, 19 service members from the base were discharged, a number that climbed to 49 last year.
  
  Fort Sill, Okla., had 27 dismissals last year, up from 8 in 2004. Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., had 60 dismissals, up from 40 in 2004, and the Marine base at Parris Island, S.C., discharged 22, up from 12.
  
  The Army, by far the largest branch of the military, discharged more gay personnel last year than the other branches with 386, the figures show, followed by the Navy with 177, the Air Force with 88 and the Marines, the smallest force, with 75.
  
  The overall number of men and women dismissed because they were found to be gay or because they disclosed their sexuality fell in the three years from 2002 to 2004. From Sept. 11, 2001, through last year, the discharge rate dropped 40 percent.
  
  The total of such discharges in 2004 was 653. That compares with 770 in 2003, 885 in 2002 and 1,227 in 2001.
  
  Under a policy introduced by the Clinton administration known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the military cannot inquire into service members’ sex lives unless there is evidence of homosexual conduct.
  
  Those who volunteer the information have to be discharged. More than 11,000 members have been discharged for that reason, the legal group said.

AISD news, Invisible Children and Darfur rallies

YAA members and Nonmilitary Options for Youth volunteers met with the AISD legal counsel again this past Wednesday to discuss what kind of policy on military recruiters the district should have. You can compare the district draft policy to our original proposal here. We would like to hear as much student feedback as possible before we proceed - please e-mail us with your thoughts, preferrably this weekend.

A few events this weekend you might like to know about:

Youth Benefit Concert:
The Youth Media Collective of Austin, a project of YAA and Austin Indymedia, is having a benefit concert tonight at Quack's Bakery. Bands performing include: Misspent Youth, Offisaurs, Toejammers, and Crystal Bedford. Funds raised will go to the purchasing of equipment that youth can use to document their lives and local activism.
When: Tonight, 6pm
Where: Quack's Bakery 1400 E. 38th 1/2 St
For more information, contact Kate Kelly at riot.kate@gmail.com.

Invisible Children Night Commute:
Every night in northern Uganda, thousands of child refugees walk for miles from their homes into camps to avoid abduction and abuse by the so-called Lord's Resistance Army. A recent study found that the death rate in Uganda is three times what it is in Iraq. Students will be meeting at UT on Saturday to walk to the Capitol in solidarity with the children and raise awareness of their struggle. Many will even spend the night outside on the Capitol steps.
When: Saturday (4/29), beginning at 6pm
Where: UT Tower, proceeding to the Capitol steps
For more information, contact Timothy Bray at timothycbray@gmail.com. To learn more see the UgandaCAN blog.

Rally to Save Darfur:
400,000 people have been killed. 3.5 million displaced from their homes. The UN has just cut food rations in half for the refugees, who are spilling into neighboring Chad. A slow genocide has been occuring over the past four years in the western Darfur region of Sudan. Rallies are being held across the country on Sunday to raise awareness of their plight and call for action to end the genocide.
When: Sunday, 1-3pm
Where: South Capitol steps, 11th St.
For more information, contact Ansel at ansel@riseup.net To learn more check out the Genocide Intervention Network.

"Texas Youth Fight the War Aimed At Them"

http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/35144/
By Jordan Buckley

A suburban packed full of high school students barreled south toward the Mexican border Tuesday, and while several of the same gaggle of youth had missed classes the week before -- then marching nearly nine miles through the Texas heat from their campus to the state capitol in protest of proposed immigration reforms -- this time around, their absence is excused.

Today, they will present on their dynamic involvement within the so-called "counter-recruitment movement" at the Women and War Conference hosted by South Texas College in McAllen, situated six hours from their home in Austin.

Seldom are teenagers invited to speak at collegiate academic conferences, but the Youth Activists of Austin (YAA!) are growing accustomed to blazing new trails. YAA! -- a citywide coalition of mostly high school-aged social justice enthusiasts -- have drawn broad attention to what they argue are the unacceptable practices of military recruiters within their schools.

Indeed, the pervasive misconduct of military recruiters on a national scale spurred the U.S. Army Recruiting Command to declare a one-day abstention from pursuing enlistments last May, instead allowing them to "refocus on their values."

In January, YAA! unleashed a new campaign to urge the Austin Independent School District (AISD) to follow the lead of other school districts across the country by placing reasonable restrictions on the on-campus activities of military recruiters.

Recently, grassroots campaigns in a number of towns have resulted in policy changes. In Tucson, Ariz., students must initiate interactions with recruiters and not the reverse; in Princeton, N.J., recruiters can only meet with students in the presence of guidance counselors; in Madison, Wis., recruiters are limited to three high school visits a year, and guidance counselors are required to provide information to students on alternatives to military service.

Spurred by these reforms and abuses they had witnessed firsthand, YAA! members drafted a ten-point platform outlining policy changes that they determined fair and necessary to ensuring healthily maintained schools. They began by attending AISD board meetings and relaying their concerns to administrators en masse.

One plank of their proposed platform -- banning military hardware from campuses -- stems from recruiters' attempts to seduce enlistees through the use of spectacular technical equipment, which functions as aggressive advertising for military service and the war rather than examples of technological achievement with academic merit, YAA! argues.

Recently, Travis High School, a predominantly lower-income and nonwhite school located in southern Austin, was visited by one of the Army's Cinema Vans -- a multimillion-dollar 18-wheeler containing highly sophisticated war simulation video games. Educators there informed students that they had to "sign up" for the van to get credit for P.E. class -- a move which put the students' personal information in recruiters' hands, thereby better enabling them to contact these students individually and convince them to enlist.

Other components of YAA!'s proposed platform include: requiring recruiters to check-in at the front office and wear a name tag upon every campus visit, requiring parental consent for administration of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, allowing students to "opt-out" of releasing their personal information to recruiters while remaining eligible for contact from universities, and forbidding recruiters from classroom and school assembly presentations unless the content of their speech is directly applicable to class curriculum.

For YAA! member Timothy Bray, a senior at Westlake High School, the latter plank responds to an episode at his school where administrators afforded a military recruiter a gymnasium filled with captive audience members to mark Veterans Day.

But in addition to navigating the traditional channels for institutional change, YAA! also operates on a number of different fronts to raise consciousness about (and to consequently interrupt) recruiters' quest for youthful enlistees.

After recruiters plotted a visit to Austin Community College in December, YAA! members hung a banner from the roof of one of the schools' buildings that read "Homophobic War Recruiters Off ACC!" -- the recruiters relocated to another campus only to be confronted there by dozens of quickly mobilized counter-recruitment activists.

YAA! has elicited media attention for staging "read-in" protests outside of the AISD headquarters. The "Better Well-Read Than Dead" vigils alert passersby to YAA!'s opposition to unduly aggressive campus recruitment while reinforcing the group's top priority -- fair access to education.

Likewise, later this month YAA! will launch the "Enlightenment not Enlistment Program" whereby students may trade in military recruitment literature mailed to their houses at local participating bookstores to receive a 10 percent discount on purchases.

On Saturday, YAA! will reveal their newest tactic to combat those trying to put them in a war zone -- Protest-in-a-can. The ready-to-go kit easily fits in a locker and contains all necessary materials to demonstrate against recruiters' sudden presence on a campus: a banner, tape recorder, chant list, media call list and counter-recruitment literature. The cans will be piloted in two high schools before possibly being amended and reproduced for further use throughout Austin, says LBJ High School freshman Kate Kelly.

Already, YAA! appears to have made real advances in their campaign with AISD. The school district's attorney, Mel Waxler, has disseminated YAA!'s platform to the principals at all of AISD's 12 high schools and will soon make a recommendation of reforms to the board of trustees based on YAA!'s proposal.

Until then, YAA! remains poised to continue countering the government's efforts to shuttle youth abroad for war-making -- whether it takes them to the school district headquarters, their schools' hallways, the city streets or the riverbanks of the Rio Grande.

Jordan Buckley is a writer based in Austin, Texas, who also works as a guest teacher for the Austin Independent School District.

Hey AISD, limit the military!

YAA students staged another successful event outside AISD headquarters today to promote education over warfare. We quietly read books, finished up some homework, and engaged in a discussion about military recruiter access in our schools. FOX 7 News devoted several minutes of coverage to the event in its nightly news program. Low-quality recorded video is below (turn up your volume, click the gray play button). As soon as FOX publishes a full transcript of the segment we'll quote that here as well.



You can read the new policy we are proposing to AISD in full here. Let us know in the comment section or at yaaustin@gmail.com what you think. YAA will be meeting again next Friday on the southwest Capitol lawn, as usual, to continue our resistance to military recruiters on behalf of the students they seek to send to war. Anyone is welcome to attend.

We give FOX 7 a big thumbs-up for their coverage of today's protest - however, a small correction. At the beginning of the segment the news anchor says that "two student groups" want to limit recruiter access in AISD schools. In fact, YAA is the only youth/student group actively working on this specific issue (while having the support of other student groups in the Austin area). The group that we have had the privilege to partner with in this AISD campaign is Nonmilitary Options for Youth, a group of concerned parents and veterans who go into schools to raise student awareness of non-violent alternatives to military service.

Also, for the record, today's protest was utterly and completely peaceful, like all YAA events.

No meeting today

Late announcement: This week's (2/17) YAA meeting has been rescheduled because of the Historians Against War conference. Instead we'll be meeting on Sunday at about 4 pm. If you'd like to attend let us know in the comments and we can forward you more information.

And a quick update about our campaign to limit military recruiter access in AISD schools: YAA members and Nonmilitary Options for Youth met with AISD general counsel Mel Waxler on Wednesday to discuss the legal implications of our proposed limitations (see below). Mr. Waxler informed us that our proposal was being taken into consideration and he would make a recommendation to the board at some point in the near future. He also confirmed, to our surprise and delight, that AISD is already moving towards a modified version of the SR-290 opt-out form that makes clear military recruiters' access to student information. The new form may even provide students and parents the opportunity to separately and exclusively opt-out from sharing their information with military recruiters - who would use such information, for instance, to call you on your birthday telling you to join the military, an unpleasant experience that interrupted a YAA member's birthday party just last year.

The struggle continues, even though there's no meeting today.

Draft of military recruiter policy at AISD

In the interest of openness and providing the public the opportunity to give us feedback, we decided at the last YAA meeting to publish our draft list of proposals for military recruiter limitations at AISD. We'd like to emphasize that this is our draft and is subject to revision as negotiations with AISD continue. It's likely that this list would be substantially altered before being implemented as AISD policy. Stay tuned for updates, and in the meantime, please let us know what you think in the comment section.

Here is the draft:

Prepared by Youth Activists of Austin and Nonmilitary Options for Youth for discussion with members of AISD school board - January 2006

1. Military recruiters will check in at the school’s administrative office and get a visitor badge every time they go onto school property.
2. Military recruiters will be restricted to designated areas in the schools, such as career centers. One-on-one visits will be monitored by a counselor or another school staff person.
3. Military recruiters will not approach students in hallways, and the student will be the one to initiate discussion with a military recruiter.
4. The SR-290 form will be revised to clearly state that military recruiters are among the organizations that request student directoryinformation, and we would prefer that there be a military-only opt-outprovision (that is, a way for students to withhold their directory information from military recruiters while allowing it to be given to college and job recruiters).
5. All guidance counselors will be made aware that students who sign up for the military through the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) are legally allowed to separate from the program if they change their minds prior to their report dates for basic training, and counselors will be able to guide students through the separation process.
6. The ASVAB test (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) will not be administered during class time or without parental approval to students under 18.
7. There will be no military hardware, military vehicles or military recreational equipment on school campuses (eg. Army Cinema Vans, humvees, helicopters, video game systems or rock-climbing equipment), and no recruitment posters featuring weapons will be displayed in schools.
8. Military recruiters will not speak in classrooms or school assemblies unless their presentations correspond to class curriculum.
9. Schools will continue to allow information about alternatives to the military to be made available to students in a manner and location similar to recruiting information.
10. Military recruiters who violate these policies will be disallowed from visiting schools within the district for a determined length of time.
    

Campaign to limit military recruiters at AISD

YAA has been working with coalition of parents, teachers, and veterans, and the group Nonmilitary Options for Youth over the past few months to develop a policy proposal for Austin Independent School District (AISD) that would lay down some rules regarding what military recruiters can and cannot do in Austin-area schools. For example, we've proposed a provision that would direct military recruiters to confine their activities to the career center, like most other college or job recruiters, and prevent them from roaming the hallways to harass students. The Austin-American Statesman had an article in yesterday's local section that does a good job of summarizing some of our efforts so far, most recently a meeting we had with two AISD school board members. The article is quoted in full below:

Austin students seek to limit military's recruiting access
Youth group working with local activists to set rules on where contact can take place.

By Raven L. Hill
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Monday, January 30, 2006

Garza High School senior Will Martin does not have a problem with students who want to join the military.

But he does think there should be limits on recruiters' access to students.

Martin and a small group of about a dozen other students in the Austin school district are working with two local groups, Nonmilitary Options for Youth and Youth Activists of Austin, in support of a proposed districtwide policy on recruiting tactics.

"We're not trying to take away the option of joining the military, but I do feel that students should be educated about decisions before they join," Martin said.

Recruiters' access to students has become a contentious issue, particularly as the U.S. military's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan continues and the government falls short of its recruitment goals. Though significant support remains for the military's efforts overseas, a small but growing number of Austin parents and students are voicing their displeasure about recruiter tactics they say are aggressive.

Public high schools must provide the military with students' contact information unless parents request otherwise in writing under the federal No Child Left Behind law. And recruiters often have broad access to students at school.

Throughout Central Texas, principals have discretion in granting access to school grounds. They decide whether recruiters are limited to specific areas of the school, such as counselor offices, or whether they can approach students in the hallways during lunch. They decide whether recruiters are limited to certain times of the year, such as college and career events, or whether they can make monthly trips to the school.

In San Marcos, for example, recruiters are allowed to take students off campus for lunch with parental consent.

Nonmilitary Options for Youth and Youth Activists of Austin have submitted proposals to Austin district officials that call for limiting recruiters to campus career centers, prohibiting them from bringing military hardware into schools and ensuring that counselors are informed about procedures for release from military contracts.

They also would like to make sure that parents are aware of the opt-out provision in the federal law that requires schools to share student contact information. The district's current policy is "all or nothing": Parents cannot specify which organizations they want to have their child's information.

The inconsistencies across campuses are troublesome, Martin said, adding that in some instances, military recruiters have more access to students than colleges or local companies.

"We think the military should have the same access as other recruiters," he said. "They shouldn't have the special right to roam the halls when other recruiters don't."

The groups' proposals are based on policies in other school systems across the country.

In Madison, Wis., recruiters are allowed in high schools only three days a year, and guidance counselors must provide information about alternatives to military service. The Tucson, Ariz., district requires students to initiate appointments with recruiters. Students in Princeton, N.J., can meet with recruiters only if a guidance counselor is present.

Lt. Col. Ronald McLaurin, commander of the Texas Army National Guard Recruiting Battalion, said that it has been difficult to recruit in some schools but that administrators have been mostly supportive.

"I can empathize with the position that principals are put in," McLaurin said. "No school has ever said flat out 'no' to us. We appreciate the access we get."

San Marcos officials - and those in some other area school districts -say they have not heard complaints about military access at their schools.

Austin district officials are exploring changes for next year that would make it clearer to parents that they have the option to withhold information and that would allow parents to specifically opt out of giving the military information, said Mel Waxler, the school district's attorney.

Waxler said that he has never received a complaint from a parent about unauthorized access from military recruiters and that the district tries to provide groups with equal access.

"If the military has a brochure that is featured in one part of the campus, then Nonmilitary Options for Youth would have the same access and same right," Waxler said. "If there are career days and the military has one of the booths, then Nonmilitary Options for Youth has a booth."

McLaurin said he would offer an alternative perspective to those seeking to limit access.

"If access to National Guard recruiters is limited, you are limiting the opportunity for some students to have a great way of life and to be part of something bigger than themselves," he said. "You are limiting opportunities for citizens to serve their communities."

YAA's next meeting is this Friday at 6:30 at a new, more central location: Little City on Congress in downtown Austin. Look for us at the back. All are welcome to attend!