Navy JROTC Targets 208 High Schools

The Following Data Did Not Appear in the Print Issue of Peacework Magazine
It is a web-based supplement, linked to from Air Force Plans To Invade: 48 High Schools Set to Start AF JROTC.

Peacework Magazine has obtained a list of high schools on the waiting list for Navy JROTC units. Jamie Munro, an intern at AFSC-NERO this summer, obtained the list from the Navy JROTC cadet command. What follows contains material from a pre-publication version of an article which will appear in Peacework, June 2005.

For the 2005-2006 school year, the Navy plans to open a JROTC unit within Senn High School in Chicago, IL, which will be called the “Rickover Naval Academy.”

In addition to Senn, there are 207 high schools across the country on the Navy’s target list (please see list below). Please help locate concerned individuals in these communities to notify them of the impending threat.

These schools have been placed on the waiting list for the JROTC program and are likely to open new units in the next few years unless there is resistance from within the districts. In many cases school boards, communities, and faculty are unaware that their schools are on JROTC waiting lists. There may have been only limited public discussion of JROTC so far, so community awareness and resistance is pivotal. In some cases, a single high school official or school board member has expressed interest in JROTC, and secured a place on the Navy’s list. There may still be time to raise a red flag with community organizations, lestransbigay groups, disability rights groups, peace groups, student councils, parent-teacher organizations, teachers’ unions, and school boards in order to stop the establishment of a new unit.

We’ve also obtained a separate list of existing schools which have Navy JROTC already but have fewer than the Navy’s-defined minimum number of students participating. We’ll post this list separately so as to reduce confusion.

Peacework has requested parallel lists for the Army and Marines.

For information about the realities of JROTC programs (which school administrations and school boards seldom hear unless we make sure they are exposed to it), please see http://www.objector.org/jrotc/why.html (though the data about textbooks linked to from this page is almost assuredly out of date, the rest of the information detailed there is still relevant), and http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/militarism-in-schools/JROTC.htm (ditto about the textbooks). A good single page document from a few years ago on points to make to school boards is at http://www.comdsd.org/alerts_archive/jrotc_expansion_alerts.htm (and the textbook information on the COMD site is more recent).

Local activists are encouraged to call the American Friends Service Committee’s Youth and Militarism office at 215.241.7046, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (Philadelphia office) at 800-NO-JROTC (800.665.7682), the War Resisters League at 212.228.0450, or Project YANO at 760.634.3604 for assistance, support, and networking.

At Peacework, we're also interested in covering struggles to stop JROTC, so please let us know about organizing initiatives.

The Navy’s Waiting List (i.e. target list) of 207 schools is listed here.

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