Funding for High Schools that Refuse Recruiters Threatened

by Florence Heist and Lisa Ann Pierce, WAMM

Perhaps you already know about a bill that Sen. Tim Hutchinson (Rep., Arkansas) is introducing next week. On April 7, 2000, I watched as Sen. Hutchinson appeared on C-SPAN, expounding on the need to withhold federal funds from high schools that do no allow military recruiters in their schools.

Briefly, Hutchinson (a graduate of Bob Jones University) emphasized these points:

• All he wants is "equal access," like that granted by schools to business and other entities.
• One-fourth of the schools in our country "already" deny access to military recruiters.
  
• There's more access in schools in Southern states. Hutchinson is "just asking for fairness."
  
• The Pentagon needs "access to these kids."
  
• "Some principals have an anti-military bias and that's wrong."
  
• It's a matter of whether we're going to be able to continue to have a volunteer military.
  
• "The only leverage we have is the funding."

Sen. Hutchinson's words are misleading. The truth is that the Pentagon's $300 billion gives them a lot of leverage. Furthermore, they could lift their recruiting numbers by paying recruits living wages, recruiting more responsibly, acting with accountability toward veterans, and eliminating racism, sexism, and heterosexism in the military.

Perhaps recruiting numbers are dropping because, in this economy, it is more and more difficult to make a case for the military as a job opportunity. Enlistment is an invitation to learn to kill and prepare to be killed.