YAWR victories at standing up to military recruiters and repression of students.
Military Recruiters' Access to Seattle Schools Restricted
The antiwar movement scored an important victory in Seattle last week. Under pressure from students and parents, the Seattle School Board passed a resolution imposing a number of regulations and restrictions on what military recruiters are allowed to do in Seattle schools. If recruiters do not follow these rules, they can be kicked off campus.
The Opt-Out Walk-Out Coalition, a coalition of Seattle antiwar groups initiated by Socialist Alternative and Youth Against War and Racism, mobilized 50 parents, students, and antiwar activists to pack the Seattle School Board meeting where the resolution was hotly debated and finally unanimously approved.
The Seattle P-I, National Public Radio, Portland Public Radio, and KIRO TV all covered the story. In fact, a number of activists and I were seen on KIRO TV on September 8th and 9th testifying before the School Board, urging them to kick recruiters out of our schools. We are also in the process of trying to get more national media coverage of this victory.
Our Opt-Out Walk-Out Coalition introduced a second, more far-reaching resolution to the School Board calling for more than what was included in this first resolution that was adopted. The first resolution imposed a number of restrictions and regulations on recruiters, but the second resolution calls for kicking the recruiters out of our schools entirely.
However, at this point, we know that only 2-3 of the 9 School Board directors are willing to vote in favor of the 2nd resolution to kick recruiters out: Sally Soriano, Mary Bass, and possibly Irene Stewart. Theresa Cardamone is also running for election to the School Board this fall, and if she were elected, she would be a 3rd or 4th vote in favor, but that would still not give us the 5 votes we need to have a majority.
Many School Board directors are comfortably hiding behind the argument that the Seattle School District would lose $38 million of federal funding if they stopped allowing recruiters into the schools. However, the New York and Chicago (and I believe Rochester) school districts have barred recruiters from their schools, and the federal government did not deny them federal funding. This is a very important precedent we need to point to to hammer home that it IS possible to kick recruiters out without losing federal education funding. If the School Board had any solid commitment to the working-class students and students of color who are disproportionately preyed upon and misled by military recruiters, they would demand that the President and Congress alter or repeal the No Child Left Behind Act to allow school districts to continue receiving federal funding if they choose not to allow recruiters into the schools.
But the majority of the School Board Directors are not entirely on our side. They will not kick the recruiters out at this time. So it is up to parents, students, and the anti-war movement to bring more intense pressure to bear on the School Board to pressure the School Board to do what they are currently unwilling to do. We can do this by tapping into and mobilizing the majority of Seattle’s population who opposes the war and would support kicking recruiters out of our schools.
The key way to do this is by focusing as much energy as possible into the county-wide student walkout on November 2. Students who participate in the walkout will overcome the sense of powerlessness and hopelessness that individuals often feel in the face of the government’s determination to “stay the course” in Iraq. It will give students a taste of their collective power. This will be one of the first and most exciting rallies that many of these students will ever have attended, and they will hear educational, motivational speakers about challenging military recruiters’ lying propaganda. We are planning to then have students march through downtown to a teach-in with multiple discussion workshops where students can learn more and get involved with Youth Against War and Racism so they get organized and prepared to continue the fight after November 2.
This whole walkout/rally/march/teach-in experience will make students who return to school feel much more emboldened to stand up to the recruiters. Students will much more boldly challenge recruiters’ lies right then and there in front of their fellow students, and make our schools much more unwelcoming environments to recruiters. We also need to use the walkout to get students and parents to call and email the School Board and attend School Board meetings to demand that the School Board pass our resolution to kick the recruiters out.
And we CAN kick recruiters out. Time is on our side as a growing majority of Americans grow increasingly fed up with this unwinnable war, which has cost nearly $300 billion of our tax-dollars and the lives of nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians. We just need to harness that growing anti-war, anti-Bush sentiment and channel it into this November 2nd walkout and keep demanding that the School Board pass our resolution to kick recruiters out. Achieving this in Seattle will make national news and add to the growing number of school boards across the country who will start kicking recruiters out, one after another.
School recruiting rules tightened
Seattle School Board responds to backlash against services
Thursday, September 8, 2005
By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
High school military recruiters who overstep lines can be kicked off campus, under revised policies adopted Wednesday night by the Seattle School Board.
Under the amended policies, recruiters for the military, for careers or for colleges who harass students, provide misleading or untrue information, or become disruptive may be banned from high school campuses for the remainder of the semester.
"It's not OK to come in and lie to our kids," said School Board member Darlene Flynn.
The new rule was part of a unanimous vote amending district-wide regulations on all campus visitors -- an attempt to standardize a jumble of individual school recruitment policies.
A survey this summer showed some high schools allowed military recruiters on campus once a month. Others allowed them to visit only once a quarter. The inconsistencies have confused both recruiters and recruiting opponents. "We agree there should be some standardization," said Maj. Forest Poole, with the local Marine Corps recruiting headquarters.
Poole said he also wanted to ensure that when recruiters are on campus that "it is a controlled, honest, non-hostile environment. The schools are concerned about that, and we are, too."
Seattle has been a hotbed of anti-recruitment activity this year. In May, Garfield High School PTSA became the first in the state to try to oust recruiters from campus. Shortly after, local colleges and high schools staged campus walkouts that temporarily shut down some recruiting centers.
Under the new guidelines, schools must adopt specific recruiting rules by Oct. 3. Those include how frequently recruiters are allowed on campus, and where they can set up. They'll be required to make advance appointments with schools, and schools will have to post calendars showing when those appointments are scheduled.
No one recruiter can visit a campus more frequently than another, and military recruiters must come in uniform.
The guidelines also ensure groups offering alternatives to the military service -- such as conscientious objector groups -- can have equal access to students, at the same time and same place.
Wednesday night's meeting at the John Stanford Center Auditorium was packed with concerned students and parents, some carrying signs that read "Rumsfeld -- hands off our students," "Don't die for a recruiter's lie" and "Money for jobs and education: not for war and occupation."
In emotional testimony, some parents and students complained that recruiters unfairly target low-income and minority children. "They are recruiting people of color to fight for a country that might let them drown in New Orleans," said Jeff Rice, leader of a Filipino youth group.
Many parents and students called for an outright ban on campus military recruiters, even though, under the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act, any school district that allows college and career recruiters but ousts military recruiters can lose federal funding.
"I don't see you're in a bind," student Guss Deisas told the board. "I really think you can just say we don't want recruiters in our schools. Ever."
But the district rejected a total ban.
Some district leaders argued an outright ban would rob students of opportunities offered by recruiters from various walks of life. "Our solution is not a complete ban ... but for students to hear from multiple sources -- the military and the countermilitary sources," said board President Brita Butler-Wall.
High School Students Win Important Free Speech Victory in Tacoma
Tacoma is a military town. But when the principal of Foss High School cancelled a "controversial" meeting of the group Youth Against War and Racism, she was shocked at the depth of anger at her action.
Within 48 hours of the principal's attack on free speech - after hundreds of protest phone calls and a 60-strong student demonstration - the principal reversed herself and gave into all the students' demands, allowing the meeting to go ahead and promising to provide two weeks' notice before military recruiters come to school so students can set up anti-war information tables next to them.
The main local paper, The Tacoma News Tribune, covered the protest on the front page of their local section under the headline "Hell No, We Won't Go," and the Tacoma Weekly made the protest its cover story!
Clara Lightner, a Foss sophomore and Socialist Alternative activist, initiated Youth Against War and Racism at her school. Clara describes some of the events:
"A few months ago, I joined a group in Tacoma called Socialist Alternative. They were working on starting a campaign to fight military recruitment in schools. We've passed out fliers at lunch time and had students sign up for an email list. There is a big anti-war sentiment among people my age, and especially minorities who are aware of the fact that military recruiters target them for joining their wars... The teach-in was going to be the first big public event for our group."
"Chief Allen, a JROTC instructor, confronted my vice-principal and my teacher who had offered access to his classroom for our after-school meeting. Also, some students in my school's JROTC program were planning to disrupt the meeting by bursting in wearing their combat uniforms."
Under these circumstances, the Principal cancelled the meeting. Members of Socialist Alternative and other local activists sent out appeals for support, which resulted in a steady flood of calls.
Clara describes the effect of the action: "This victory for free speech was the result of the tremendous student support we received in Foss and from thousands of supporters from around the country and world. Even the steelworkers' national union office called me to guarantee 100 calls to my principal.
"The entire school was aware that they had been receiving hundreds of phone calls. The students are very excited to know a campaign like this is going on at their school."
Victory
in Minnesota
Administrators, Military Recruiters Back Down After Students
Turn Up the Heat
By Brandon Madsen and Matt Johnson, Kennedy High School, Youth Against
War and Racism
Bloomington, MN - For weeks our club at Kennedy High School, Youth Against War and Racism, had planned to set up an anti-war information table at lunch on Wednesday, February 23. This was the day military recruiters were scheduled to visit the school.
But Tuesday morning our Principal, Ron Simmons, was visited by representatives from the American Legion. They threatened to withdraw financial support from our school unless we were forbidden from tabling Wednesday. District Superintendent Gary Prest, also pressured by the American Legion, called Principal Simmons and told him to shut us down.
However, we were not about to accept this flagrant violation of our right to free speech or allow the American Legion to blackmail our school.
This was not the first time Kennedy students had to battle the administration. In fact, this repression followed months of negotiations to get the right to set up a table. A school district lawyer finally confirmed that we had equal tabling rights as the recruiters.
We had set up our first counter-recruitment table last December, right next to the military recruiters. The recruiters' table was abandoned. Meanwhile, our table was mobbed by hundreds of interested students who asked questions, signed petitions, took flyers and pamphlets, and discussed politics. By the end of the day we collected 120 signatures for the petition against recruiters being allowed to invade our school. Over 100 more signed in the following days.
We Decided to
Fight Back
Our previous organization and victory meant that everyone in the group was
confident enough to fight back against this new, more serious repression.
We organized an emergency meeting on Tuesday evening, and plotted our next moves. Fourteen members showed up and decided to table in violation of the administration's decree. If they demanded that we take down our table, we would refuse, regardless of the consequences.
We drafted a flier and petition to hand out to students, asking them to support our free speech rights. We sent a solidarity appeal to progressive groups across the country asking them to call the Superintendent and Principal in protest, and we called a press conference after school in our cafeteria. We intended to show the administration that if they were going to violate the constitution, they would have do it over our resistance, and they would have to do it publicly.
When lunch period began we assembled the tables and began to sell buttons, hand-out informational leaflets, and play guitar, eliciting a very positive response.
But the Principal demanded that we remove our table. When we refused, administrators began to physically remove our materials themselves. They told us that our after-school meeting/press-conference was cancelled, and threatened us with three days' suspension. We decided it was better to accept their offer to meet with the Superintendent, rather than stick around with no materials to pass out.
Meanwhile, the solidarity appeal was making its way around the globe via e-mail. Members of Socialist Alternative, with whom we have been working closely, compiled the press list and helped to distribute the solidarity appeal. Within hours, the appeal reached tens of thousands of inboxes, resulting in the Principal and Superintendent being swamped with calls. As Principal Simmons later let slip: "It's been overwhelming."
Due to all of the calls and the threat of press coverage, combined with our active resistance, our meeting with the Superintendent was of a decidedly different character than the earlier confrontation with the Principal. He presented himself as all smiles, and quickly gave in to all our demands, trying to play it off as a big misunderstanding.
Our teach-in after school was highly successful, with 30-40 students and a number of parents and community supporters attending. We received press coverage in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio, as well as several other publications and radio stations. Even Michael Moore put our story and a picture of our teach-in on his website! At the end of the day, the students left feeling elated, organized, and strong.
Spread the Campaign!
Even before our recent success, Kennedy students and Socialist Alternative
were working to launch Youth Against War and Racism as a Twin Cities network
for students to come together and fight to end the occupation of Iraq, to
cut the bloated military budget and fund education, to end military recruitment
in schools, and to oppose the government's racist attacks on civil liberties.
It is essential that we stand up and take action against military recruiters. The U.S. war machine relies on bribing young people to join the military and carry out the imperialist policies ordered by corrupt politicians. If we build a mass movement of young people against the war that exposes the lies of Bush and the military recruiters, the military will no longer have a steady supply of youth to use as cannon fodder.
We can't count on the government or our school administrators to stop military recruiters from spreading their lies. We must take it upon ourselves to educate and organize our fellow students, and make our schools off-limits to recruiters. If every time they show up we provide an overwhelmingly unwelcome environment, they will simply stop coming. Already at Kennedy, in stark contrast to the six to ten recruiters who usually show up, only one came this time.
We need to spread this campaign to schools across the Twin Cities and across the country.
Youth Against War And Racism Protest Recruiting Stations
In response to public anger at widespread "improprieties" by military recruiters, on May 20 recruiters across the country closed shop for a one-day "Values Stand-down" retraining. Youth Against War and Racism (YAWR), alongside other counter-recruitment groups, issued a national call to protest recruitment stations on May 21, to say "One day is not enough!"
Michael Moore posted an Army Times article on his website, reporting that a Seattle recruitment station planned to shut down to avoid the YAWR protest! Over 80 lively supporters showed up to picket and received tremendous media coverage, including reports on National Public Radio and a picture in the New York Times.
We organized similar lively protests in Boston, and in Minneapolis 50 young people and community supporters marched 15 blocks to a recruiting station, chanting "Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation."
The week before, YAWR activists turned in almost 400 petitions to the Minneapolis School Board, and a similar number to the Bloomington, MN School Board, demanding that students be given opt-out forms to keep their private contact information out of military recruiters' hands.
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