Learn More About Conscientious Objection

• What High School Students Can Do
• What Parents Can Do
• What Everyone In The Community Can Do

What High School Students Can Do

• If you are a high school student who is 18 years or older, request that your name not be included if student directory information is to be released to the military. This is your right under the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA).
  
  
• Learn about your free speech rights at school. Exercise your right to put up posters and distribute literature with alternative views on war, JROTC, and military recruiting.
  
  
• Oppose the introduction of high school military training programs like the JROTC at your high school.
  
  
• Create clubs to educate other students about peace and social justice issues.
  
  
• When the military is going to be present at your school, ask that community groups with alternative views be invited to give the other sides of the issue.

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What Parents Can Do

• Complain when schools allow the military to use school partnerships to propagandize and recruit students. If members of a military unit, base or ship want to support local education, ask that they donate their services out of uniform just like any other business or group, without promoting their organization or its special interests.
  
  
• The No Child Left Behind Act ties a school's funding to the automatic release of students' names to the military. If you have sons or daughters in high school, you must opt out of having their names included in student directory information to be released to the military. This is your legal right under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). See PoC news: Military Recruiters Unrivaled Access to Schools
  


• One might think that a student's information should be protected and private, and rather than having it automatically released to the military a student or parent should choose to have it given to the military. Campaign to get your school district to require that all parents and students be given a form to use to make this request at the beginning of each school year. Also, work with others to have this provision, which automatically releases student names to the military, removed from the No Child Left Behind Act.
  
  
• Contact a local draft counseling group to learn about what Selective Service registration is and what it means to register with it or not, and how conscription might work if it were activated in the future. See PoC news: The Case for the Draft
  
  
• Oppose militaristic programs in middle schools, like the Young Marines, Starbase Atlantis and the Cadet Corps.

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What The Community Can Do

• Campaign for your school district to allow military recruiters at school only when representatives will also be present from civilian employers, colleges, and universities, and, when possible, counter-military recruiters.
  
  
• Oppose the introduction of military training programs like JROTC in local high schools; propose the termination of existing JROTC units. Instead, encourage students to start peace service clubs at their schools.
  
  
• Ask teachers to include literature from leaders who worked for peace, such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. For ideas, please visit the War Resisters League website.
  
  
• Help distribute counter-recruitment literature and information to high schools; contact groups that already do this or start one if none exists locally. If you are in Lane County, Oregon, please contact the Community Alliance of Lane County (CALC) for more information.
  
  
• Support campaigns in Congress to end the Selective Service and draft registration. Please see the Central Committe for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) website for more information.
  
  
• Support school policies that restrict military recruiter access to campuses and student lists. Conversely, oppose further congressional efforts to force schools to drop restrictions on military recruiter access to campuses and student lists.
  
  
• Learn who serves on your Selective Service Local (Draft) Board. Find out where they stand in regard to conscientious objection. Consider applying online with the U.S. Selective Service to become a member of your local board.
  
  
• Contact Congress and demand that the Pentagon and its personnel be held accountable for violence throughout the world and for funding arsenals instead of human services, the environment and schools.
  
  
• What would the weapons manufacturers and 'defense' contractors do if their guns, tanks and missiles were not purchased by the U.S. Military? Advocate for the abolition of military spending on armaments.
  
  
• What does it mean to really support the troops? Volunteer your skills and offer your support to veterans and veteran organizations that are providing services to soldiers and National Guard personnel who are returning from active service. By welcoming these people back into our communities and listening to their experiences, we provide a space for them to address their trauma and shame for acts that they may have been ordered to commit while serving in the military. Encourage these troops, once they have healed, to share their experiences publicly so youth can learn, from their active-duty experiences, the true costs of war.
  
  
• Organize peace groups and join peace and justice organizations. Plan events (i.e. forums, panels, speakers, protests, neighborhood and church gatherings) to educate your community about the military, the occupation and invasion of Iraq, and past wars. Learn about the history of nonviolent actions and then teach peace, by personal example.
  
  
• Ask local businesses that sell war toys or rent/sell violent video games if they would consider selling different products.  If you can get enough support in your community, consider developing a boycott of these local stores if they continue to sell violence.
  
  
• Create a campaign to pressure recruiters to not call or contact youth in your community (at home, at the malls, or where youth gather).
  
  
• Explore whether your local college has a military science course. If so, then find out the instructor's training or degree, and who funds the instructor for this course. Also, explore whether the military pays the college to offer this course and for access to the students. If this is the case, please contact us, and also complain to the college administrators. If they are unresponsive, then contact a local newspaper reporter and ask them to write about this practice.

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