Counter-recruiting battle may head to court

[unhappycamper]

Sally Ferrell had lobbied since 2005 to distribute pamphlets warning students about joining the military. After being denied access to Wilkes County, N.C., schools for two years, the American Civil Liberties Union made a deal with the school board to allow her to distribute materials twice a year. The school superintendent said one of the reasons Ferrell was denied was that while military recruiters were offering a career opportunity, Ferrell was not.


Counter-recruiting battle may head to court
By Mitch Weiss - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Sep 3, 2008 14:59:40 EDT

WILKESBORO, N.C. — Sally Ferrell bounded from the truck and grabbed a posterboard sign that read: “War is not the Answer.”

Over the years, she’s organized dozens of peace vigils like this one being set up in a parking lot. Find common ground, she has always preached, and any conflict can be resolved.

But she’s now engaged in a conflict of her own — a dispute over military recruiting in high schools that has polarized rural Wilkes County.

Ferrell is a Quaker, a faith known know for opposition to war. For three years, she has asked permission to distribute pamphlets that warn students to think twice before joining the military. But the school superintendent has stopped her, calling her activities unpatriotic. The American Civil Liberties Union, seeing this as an issue of freedom of speech, has threatened to sue.

“The students need to know there are alternatives to the military,” Ferrell said. “But they’re not getting the other side.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/ap_recruiting_protester_090308/%2e

[Blaubart]

1. I agree with the school on this one.

Schools are not the place to hold these kinds of battles. Freedom of speech does not mean you have the right to say whatever you want, wherever you want. If that were the case, I should be permitted to protest the sharing of students' private information by the testing companies, in the same room, while they're taking their SAT's. I should be permitted to hand out pamphlets for upcoming sales at JCPenny, or how to build a bomb, or the answers to tests and quizzes, or whatever *I* want. What? I don't have the right to do that? Then why should this woman have the right to sell her opinion to our children in a public school?

I also don't think recruiters should visit high school campuses outside of career fairs. I also don't think they should be given any sort of list that contains the names and phone numbers of students. If a student wants to talk to a recruiter, they know where to find them.

The Army tried to make me be a recruiter. I got out of it, but that's a long story for some other time. I did go to recruiter school. I learned about the requirements to contact X% of the high school juniors and seniors by certain dates. They taught new recruiters to use any means necessary to get lists of names and phone numbers and if the school wouldn't cooperate and provide a list, that was no excuse for not meeting the deadlines.