Prin. bans 'anti-military,' 'anti-Amer.' materials

[RPankn]

Wednesday, 02/02/05

Principal bans 'anti-military,' 'anti-American' materials

By CHRIS JONES
Associated Press

A Cookeville (Tenn.) High School administrator said Veterans for Peace and a Quaker group can't come back into his school with materials considered ''anti-American'' and ''anti-military.''

The groups plan to go before the Putnam County school board tomorrow with claims that they're being denied privileges afforded to other organizations, including military recruiters.

The war veterans, some who also belong to the Quaker group, were allowed into the school during a September fair for organizations. They set up a table with books about U.S. wars and offered photocopied fliers and pamphlets from both organizations about the war in Iraq and military careers and alternatives.

Quaker and veteran Hector Black said several students stopped by the table and asked questions, and a couple of teachers even thanked them for coming.

He said there wasn't any indication of a problem until later that evening, when he got a phone call from Principal Wayne Shank.

Shank told Black that some of the groups' materials may be proper for adults, but he thought they were inappropriate for the students.

''The information was brought to the attention of administrators because of the influence it may have had,'' said Shank, who restricted future visits by the groups. ''I felt, from a principal's viewpoint, that the students were being put into a position that they shouldn't.''

Black said Shank specified some quotes in the literature that he objected to, including one from a 1953 speech by President Eisenhower that said, ''Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. Those who are cold and are not clothed.''

Another quote from an unknown author said, ''The Army that can defeat terrorism doesn't drive Humvees, or call in airstrikes. ... It undermines military dictatorship and military lobbyists. It subverts sweatshops and special interests.'' [Wow. You know this country has gone straight to hell when the principle that government should be responsive to the people that pay for it, and who it represents, is considered a radical concept.]

County School Director Michael Martin said, ''Parents found the materials to be anti-American, anti-military. That didn't come from us. That came from the parents who saw the materials when their kids brought it home.''

Shank said in a phone interview from Cookeville that he couldn't recall everything he found offensive. He said he received a complaint call from a parent a day after the event and made an administrative decision to ban their ''offensive materials.''

Shank said he didn't tell the groups that they couldn't come back into the school.

He required that all their materials get advance approval, a rule he said also applies to military recruiters.

The principal also said their literature could be shown only in a classroom setting that would allow an opportunity for a ''balanced'' presentation. Military recruiters and other groups don't face that restriction, the peace activists said.

Veteran Charlie Osburn said his group doesn't understand why military recruiters and others such as the Association of Christian Athletes are allowed into Cookeville High School without the same restrictions.

His group aims to inform students, he said.


tennessean.com/education/archives/05/01/65061319.shtml?Element_ID=65061319

[RPankn]

[On a related note...]

Local group seeking equal time with military recruiters

Updated: Wednesday, February 2, 2005 5:37 PM PST

By Paul Boerger

Mount Shasta residents Jenny Reese and Ray Wolf are developing a program for local schools that aims to provide information about enlisting in the military they say is not included in recruiters' presentations.

"We want to help students, parents and teachers understand what military enlistment is about," said Wolf, a five-year US Navy veteran and petty officer. "We need them to see the reality of what they experience in the military, both combat and non-combat, is about."

Wolf said a little known aspect of the No Child Left Behind initiative is that unless parents opt out schools are required to provide student information, including addresses and phone numbers, to recruiters or lose federal funding.

Siskiyou Union High School District superintendent Richard Holmes confirmed the NCLB contains such a provision, but said the district cannot legally provide Wolf and Reese with access to the students.

"Under federal mandate we must treat the armed forces as potential employers," Holmes said. "However sympathetic we may be to a peace curriculum, our legal counsel advised us we can't allow them the same access. If students want to start a peace club and have them as speakers, that would be all right."

Holmes said all parents are advised of the opt out option. He said recruiters have access to the students in the library at lunch time and at Career Day.

Among the issues Wolf said are not presented by recruiters are that enlistment agreements for training or job may be changed at will by the military, college money is often not what enlistees understand it to be and military jobs are often not applicable to the civilian sector.

Wolf and Reese would like to have classroom presentations, presentations at career days, a representative available in the library and literature in the counseling offices.

"What we're seeking is equal access with military recruiters," Reese said. "We want to work with the school districts and have this be a cooperative effort."

Reese points to a 1986 US 9th Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that found a group opposed to draft registration should be allowed to advertise in a high school newspaper as legal justification for the having equal access to the recruiters.

Proponents of equal access say the ruling implies military service and recruitment is a political issue in and of itself and that alternate viewpoints should be allowed.

Holmes said the court decision does not alter the fact the group does not qualify as an employer.

Holmes said the group may have a table at Career Day that offers employment such as Habitat for Humanity, the Red Cross or the Peace Corps because they are employment opportunities.

"There are many ways to peacefully serve your country," Holmes said.

Holmes was clear, however, that political messages were not appropriate.

"If recruiters were promoting the war, it would be a different thing," Holmes. "We've told them to only present employment opportunities."

National Guard recruiter Mike Reed said recruits are fully informed of their options and responsibilities when they join. [This is b.s., at least as far as the Navy goes and, from what I understand, every other branch of the military. When my brother enlisted in the Navy, the recruiter made him all kinds of promises, some of which my brother didn't find out were false until well after he completed boot camp and couldn't do little more than complain.[/b]

"You pick your job and it goes into a contract," Reed said. [Lie #2: You can pick your job, but if someone with the recruit's abilities is needed for other job slots deemed more important to fill, the recruit can be reassigned and won't get the job they first wanted.] "I know people who have gotten out of the military because the contract was breached. Everything including pay, job, college money and term of enlistment is in the contract."

On the issue of military training not applying to civilian life, Reed is in partial agreement.

"There are some jobs that don't convert to civilian. For a rifleman, that's true," Reed said. "However, it applies for leadership and supervisory skills. If you are in charge of a rifle squad or platoon, you're getting those skills." [I have heard of some employers refusing to hire recent career military veterans -- especially in fields or positions which require "self-starters" -- because they're accustomed to taking orders from their supervisors, rather than doing something on their own initiative, and it takes some time for them to adjust.]

Reed said some training can lead directly to a civilian job.

"In the medical profession, it's a straight match," Reed said. "A man I recruited trained in the National Guard and went directly to Mercy Medical as an operating room technician."

On the issue of a military profession leading to death or disability, Reed said, "There is a level of implied responsibility."

"What is it people think we do?" Reed said.

Reed also said the contract specifically states, and it is on the parental consent form for 18 year olds, that active duty may be extended "in time of war or national emergency declared by the Congress or the President."

"One of the first questions I get from potential recruits is 'Will I go to Iraq?'" Reed said. "I tell them they very well could."


www.mtshastanews.com/articles/2005/02/02/news/07schoolaccess.txt

[Moses]

Grrrr-- the principal banned the Quaker group because ONE parent called?! How many parents have called principals objecting to various school policies and even to military recruitment and gotten no response?

The military recruiters should not be allowed to recruit in high schools, period.