Counter-Recruitment

A political tactic associated with efforts against war and militarism, counter-recruitment took on particular significance in the U.S. peace movement after 1973. With the suspension of the formal draft which came about at the time of U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Armed Forces began a concerted effort to fill its ranks through direct, community-based employment opportunities. Between 1971 and 1974, the U.S. Armed Forces doubled the funding, personnel, and offices dedicated to military recruitment. A steady increase since that time, with special emphasis on high schools and colleges located in low-income neighborhoods, has led to a widespread, decentralized network of counter-recruitment activists.

Counter-recruitment campaigns began largely in place of the draft resistance and conscientious objection projects of traditional peace groups such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors (later renamed the Center on Conscience &War), and the War Resisters League. Strategic differences exist among these groups, including disputes over the efficacy of illegal refusal (to register for the draft or comply with unjust laws), as opposed to work [Page 398]within legal and military structures to extend the rights of conscientious objection to as broad a range of people as possible. Most of these organizations, nevertheless, have lent support to the wide range of local counter-recruitment efforts of the past quarter century.

Throughout the 1980s, as military recruiters became a more consistent and aggressive presence at high school career and college fairs (invited to school-sponsored auditorium, classroom, and guidance counselor presentations), counter-recruiters increased their school-based leafleting and outreach to students and teachers alike. Several key court decisions during this period established basic guidelines for the peace practitioners. In Vogt v. School Board of Palm Beach County, a Florida group was granted the right to have draft counseling materials placed in guidance counselors' offices but was denied equal access to school-sponsored career days attended by the military. This decision was based on the premise that counter-recruitment groups were not offering students prospective jobs. In Clergy and Laity Concerned v. Chicago Board of Education, a local religious group offering counter-recruitment alternatives to the military was granted the same degree of access as military recruiters. In San Diego Committee Against Registration and the Draft v. Grossmont Union High School District, local activists were granted the right to place ads in school newspapers;the court reasoning was that recruitment is a controversial political topic, and as such, it deserved multiple viewpoints even in students' papers not fully protected by the First Amendment. This local precedent is especially important in relation to the 1988 Supreme Court decision (Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier) limiting the rights of freedom of speech in school newspapers that are overseen by a faculty member, using the school name or resources. In Searcey v. Harris, an Atlanta-based counter-recruitment campaign won full access to the schools, the court ruling that school districts could not deny access based on their disapproval of an organization's views.

Much of the information presented by counter-recruitment activists centers around the inaccuracies told to potential enlistees during the recruitment process. The fact that, by the U.S. Department of Defense's own estimates, roughly half of those who join the armed forces find themselves in financial difficulty after one year in service is a highly challenging piece of information, given that a clear majority of those who sign up do so for economic reasons. That military recruiters regularly lie about the type of jobs or job training available to enlistees is often cited. With so many youth joining the military for college tuition assistance, it is also noteworthy that, by the late 1990s, the top recruitment drives were taking place at GED (General Education Development) test centers, where students may have great academic motivation but few resources. The 1990s also saw an increase in recruitment through the Reserves Officer Training Corps (ROTC), a course offered to high schools and junior high schools as a curriculum enhancement.

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