2-02-06, 9:19 am
Ann Arbor, Michigan's Lincoln High School students have successfully pressured school officials to bar military recruiters from approaching students in the hallways and lunchrooms of the school.
According to a press statement by Michigan Peaceworks, an Ann Arbor-based peace organization, new rules will require military recruiters to follow the same rules that other employers and colleges are required to follow. Recruiters will be restricted to the counseling offices where students will be able to register for appointments with recruiters.
'The new guidelines mean that the military, which had been receiving preferential treatment, will now be treated the same as other employers and institutions of higher learning regarding access to students,' says Michigan Peaceworks.
While the school continues to follow onerous legal requirements that mandate that local schools allow military recruiters to have access to children, Lincoln High School also adopted an 'opt-out' policy, making it easier for student and parents to keep student information out of the hands of recruiters.
Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act mandates that military recruiters have access to names and addresses of students in public high schools, with the exception of those who have opted-out.
Military recruiters use their access to student information to target potential recruits. Critics of this policy have also accused the Department of Defense of inappropriately collecting and storing immense amounts of data on students, even when they requested to 'opt-out.'
The Joint Advertising and Market Research Studies (JAMRS) system was secretly created in 2002, probably in violation of the 1976 Privacy Act, and stores information ranging from test scores, ethnicity, and telephone numbers, to Social Security numbers, areas of study, colleges attended, and much more.
Further, says James Plummer of the Liberty Coalition, the Pentagon 'uses questionable private contractors to collect the data for JAMRS.' According to Plummer, the law requires that the government not use private contractors to collect this information.
American Student List Corp. and Student Marketing Group Corp., which have sold student information to private contractors who handle the Pentagon's JAMRS system, have been fined by the Federal Trade Commission and are being sued for deceptive collecting data practices.
Mitch Goldsmith, co-founder of SAW indicated that recruiters used high-pressure tactics when confronting students at the high school. 'They basically harassed students,' says Goldsmith.
Goldsmith and fellow SAW members have been distributing truth-in-recruiting materials since the beginning of the school year.
'When they found out what SAW was doing,' says Goldsmith, 'I was targeted personally, and I had recruiters calling me names like Osama Bin Laden.'
SAW is also lobbying for the right to set up informational tables in lunchrooms on the same days as recruiters.
Goldsmith and others founded Students Against War after attending a Youth Peace Summit sponsored by Michigan Peaceworks last August in Ann Arbor. The Summit brought together students from eleven high schools throughout southeast Michigan.
Joseph Kuilema, a University of Michigan graduate social work intern at Michigan Peaceworks, stated, 'Students Against War is a great example of what we hoped to accomplish with the Youth Peace Summit. They are organized, they are passionate, and they have been able to make important and lasting changes in their school.'
Lincoln High's students will be sharing their experiences with other local high school students at the inaugural meeting of the Youth Activist Council in Ann Arbor on February 2.
Find out more about the Pentagon's questionable recruitment practices here: .
Find out more about students and other youth who are fighting against these practices here:
