I’ve seen people bring this up over the years but it always confused me.
Supposedly some people claim that their high school had a specific office where a US military recruiter was there at all hours for people who wanted to join the military.
However with my time in the Army I just don’t believe that, since the recruiter would have to deal with the schools time schedule and I’m guessing the school isn’t going to let people out of class to “go see him”. It just doesn’t make any sense to have the recruiter physically in the high school and not just in his own recruiting office downtown where he has access to it on Weekends.
By Federal law, schools must give “equal access” to military recruiters. But many school systems seem to interpret that as “special access”, or to mean they have to provide access to military recruiters, even if they don’t normally allow other recruiters on campus.
I’ve seen some reporting that in some schools, military recruiters are heavily involved in daily activities, serving in various volunteer positions, such as coach, substitute teacher, and supervising extracurricular activities. In such cases, it seems possible the school would let them use a spare room as an on-campus office. In that case, it wouldn’t be so much that there’s an office where there’s a military recruiter just hanging out all day, as that there’s a military recruiter that’s pretty much always on campus, and has an office where they’re available to talk at certain times.
The other thing is what was called “home town recruiting” when I was in. This was a TDY assignment for recent recruits to go back to their hometown and help the local recruiter. One of the explicitly suggested activities was for a recent high school grad to go back to their high school to talk to students there. Again, it seems possible a high school might make a spare office available to military recruiters, and a local recruiting office might rotate recruiters and Soldiers on TDY for “hometown recruiting” through such an office, such that it seemed like there was a recruiter permanently stationed there.
The other thing that occurs to me, which should have been the first thing, is that JROTC is a thing:
If the school has a JROTC program, the JROTC “home room” might well serve as a de facto recruitment office. I’m not familiary enough with the details of the JROTC program to know if this is how it actually works, but it seems like it’s possible the local JROTC commander might even be an actual military recruiter. (In my high school, I vaguely remember it was a retired military officer who ran the JROTC program as a part time volunteer, but, again, that’s only a vague memory that might be way off.).
It doesn’t help that in the latter cases members of the political authority over the school system, or some parent groups, or media pundits, or just Joe Blow Influencer, on the Right will make a Big Noise about how unacceptable it is that TeH Troops™ be denied unrestricted access.
My understanding of “equal access” in a school context is that if the school allows students to have clubs on school property, then the school administrators can’t be choosy about which clubs are allowed and which are banned. I don’t see how that is relevant here.
Are there schools that have full-time college recruiters, or football recruiters, which would force the school to allow a full-time military recruiter?
Equal to other recruiters. As I said, some schools seem to interpret “equal access” to mean “special” access, or as @JRDelirious said, unrestricted access.
What it’s supposed to mean is that if a high school has a Career Day, for example, they have to allow a military recruiter to set up a booth like everyone else. Or, if they allow college athletic scouts to attend games and/or practices, they have to give equivalent access to military recruiters.
If a school doesn’t allow any recruiters onto campus, they legally don’t have to allow military recruiters. If they strictly limit the access of other recruiters, they can legally strictly limit the access of military recruiters.
But there’s also no Federal law or regulation that forbids schools from giving military recruiters preferential access, or saying that military recruiters can only serve as coaches, substitute teachers, extracurricular supervisors and so forth if other, non-military recruiters also perform similar roles.
Whether school districts and individual schools that have cozy relationships with military recruiters should have those kinds of relationships is another matter, and beyond the scope of a GQ thread.
Aren’t “equal access” and “preferential access” mutually exclusive? If a school gives preferential access to a military recruiter, then the non-military recruiters will demand equal access, no?
I imagine it is similar to a tv station that gave preferential access to a particular political party. The other party will justifiably demand equal access.
Except…I mean, college recruitment isn’t legally protected by Federal law. There may be a case that different colleges have to be treated the same, but I’m not even sure about that. But there’s no legal principle I’m aware of which requires the Podunk Consolidated School District to treat recruiters from Podunk State University, $tandard Trade $chool, McDonald’s, and the U.S. military on equal terms.
Title 20, United States Code, Section 7908(a)(3) and Title 10, United States Code, Section 503(c)(1)(A)(I) require schools to give “equal access” to military recruiters. As far as I’m aware, there is no such law that requires other recruiters to be given access equal to that of military recruiters, nor is there any bar on giving military recruiters preferential access.
Beyond that, I’m don’t even know that other recruiters even want to have the same sort of access that military recruiters sometimes have in some schools, nor that they are denied such access if they want it.
Again, this seems likes it’s veering into GD territory. It’s a simple brute fact that Federal law requires “equal access” for military recruiters. It simply doesn’t (as far as I’m aware) require other recruiters to be given access equal to military recruiters. Some schools don’t give military recruiters preferential access, nor are they required to. Some schools apparently do give preferential access to military recruiters, and there’s no Federal bar against that.
WAG here: that ruling came about during the Vietnam war years when the public began becoming anti-war, thereby impairing the enlistments out of high schools, which raised the proportion of enlisted that had to be drafted, which created even more public ire and resistance. I’d be happy to be wrong here.
I Am Not A Lawyer. I’ve given you my personal understanding of what the general understanding of the law is, including how critics of military recruiting in high schools understand the law. I’ve never come across anyone, even critics, claim that the “equal access” provision forbids preferential access for military recruiters. But, again, I Am Not An Expert.
Maybe someone with the relevant subject matter expertise will pipe up to correct misunderstandings I may have, or better address your questions and concerns. But we’ve reached the limits of my GQ knowledge of this subject.
It means that on Career Day the various branches of the military can set up booths in the gym with swag and smooth-talking recruiters just like the local colleges, major employers and such. Otherwise there is no military presence on our campus and hasn’t been since JROTC went away a few years back.
There aren’t enough recruiters to have each one to spend their time in one particular school. A recruiter will have an assigned area in which there will be multiple schools. I knew several recruiters who thought it was mostly a waste of time but they made their rounds and set up their table because they were told to. Some school were more fertile ground than others. Anecdotal I know but I was told that poorer schools were a waste of time and they were much more successful in middle class neighborhoods.