[Peace-discuss] Quaker Activist Recruits For Peace In Military Town

[Robert Naiman]

Philadelphia Inquirer
August 13, 2009

Quaker Activist Recruits For Peace In Military Town

By Mike Baker, Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A rural North Carolina school district with a proud
military tradition is allowing a Quaker peace activist a chance to
compete with military recruiters at steering high school students to
careers, attorneys said yesterday.

For years, Sally Ferrell had been asking permission to warn students
about joining the military. The Wilkes County School Board had denied
her access, even though military recruiters are typically allowed in
school, and school leaders had called her activities unpatriotic.

Superintendent Stephen Laws said the district and the American Civil
Liberties Union reached an agreement that bars recruiters from
presenting political views or attacking other occupations. He disputed
the suggestion that Ferrell had not been granted equal access, saying
she was banned from schools because her criticism of the armed forces
violated district policy.

The ACLU had argued that Ferrell and her group, North Carolina Peace
Action, were denied free speech. Under the agreement, she will have
the same access to students as military recruiters.

Ferrell said she looked forward to providing job-related information.
She has previously touted AmeriCorps and other alternatives to the
military.

The agreement puts new restrictions on all types of promoters.
Recruiters can no longer approach students directly, as they often do
by setting up tables in cafeterias and common areas. Instead, they can
only meet with students who sign up to hear about opportunities, Laws
said.

"We're extremely pleased with the agreement," Laws said, "and we're
excited about moving on."

Recruiters have been relying more heavily on high schools to help fill
the ranks of the all-volunteer military. Activists have complained the
military often targets high schools in poor and rural areas, where
graduating students have limited options.

Wilkes County, on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains about
50 miles west of Winston-Salem, has been hurt by the exodus of
manufacturing jobs. Its June unemployment rate was 13.2 percent. The
area has a proud military history going back to Col. Benjamin
Cleveland, a Revolutionary War commander who helped defeat the British
in the Battle of Kings Mountain.

-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org