Why we’re walking out
An open letter to school boards in the Twin Cities metro area from Youth Against War and Racism
“Pass a resolution banning military recruitment in our schools!”

Like all wars the Iraq war is hitting young people the hardest. In the U.S. we are paying for the war not only with our lives but also with larger class sizes, crumbling schools, and with a huge government debt that will push down our standard of living for decades to come. Our Iraqi sisters and brother are growing up in a nightmare of violence, fear, disease and poverty.

While our public education system is allowed to fall apart for lack of resources, our elected leaders have voted to spend nearly $400 billion on war since 2001.

As the cost of college rises out of reach for most of us and living wage jobs disappear, our elected leaders are sending more and more military recruiters into our schools, targeting those of us who have seen all other doors to a decent future slammed in our face.

It’s clear to us that most politicians care more about oil profits than about our future well being, so we are taking the struggle for a decent future into our own hands.

That’s why we are organizing a student walkout on April 28th to demand an end to the war, an end to military recruitment in our schools, for huge new investments into our public schools and universities, and for living wage jobs when we graduate.

Some say we shouldn’t be “disrupting” our education by walking out. But when has any corrupt and unaccountable power been effectively challenged without disruptions?

The real disrupters are the politicians who under-fund education to pay for war and tax cuts for the rich. The real disrupter is the U.S. military that bombs the schools of our fellow students in Iraq and invades our classrooms here at home. We refuse to go about business as usual while these crimes go unchallenged.

We are writing to you, metro-area school board members, to ask that you join us in taking a bold stand against the war and for our future. We are walking out to demand that you pass a resolution banning military recruitment in our schools, in defiance of Bush’s No Child Left Behind legislation.

This unjust law is economic blackmail, threatening our schools with federal funding cuts unless we allow military recruiters into our schools to use their deceptive methods and financial bribes to take our fellow students away to war.

This is not the first time we have asked you to end military recruitment in our schools. Last November 2nd thousands of students from over 40 area schools in at least 16 districts walked out to demand this.

In Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington we have given you hundreds of student signatures on petitions demanding this. We hope you find the moral courage to join us in standing up to Bush’s unjust laws and this unjust war.

Together we have a unique power to help stop this war. Already many military experts say that unless recruitment numbers go up they could be forced to withdraw troops from Iraq. If across the county student protests and school board actions turned our schools into military free zones the U.S. war machine would come to a grinding halt. Lets do our part to make this happen.