It's only the second day of class and already the National Guard recruiters have arrived on campus.
I wonder why I never (not once!) saw them on Yale and Cornell campuses. Of course, the student body here is very different in terms of financial background and social class. I hate the hypocrisy of the people who use the fact that some of the students here find it extremely difficult to make ends meet in order to acquire some cheap and expendable cannon fodder.
I also wonder why the university doesn't prohibit these recruitment efforts on campus. Shouldn't we try to protect our students from these things while they are with us?
10 comments:
I do not think state university can forbid recruiting to a government agency. Universities have great difficulty to forbid recruiting to predatory lenders (a.k.a credit card companies)...
V.
Can they just appear on campus and occupy space (which might be needed for other activities) without asking for a permission? This is just so wrong.
I suspect they have to notify administration and ask which space would be more suitable, but the university cannot deny them space altogether...
Also, do not forget you are in a "red area" now, "patriots" will be offended by attempts of the university to prevent military recruiting...
V.
I know! Turns out that my school became famous last year when one of the student leaders wrote an extremely offensive e-mail to the author of Feministing website. There was a huge scandal.
And there is no feminist group on campus. I envision a lot of work. :-)
Looking at how your university reacted to that incident, I think your chances are relatively high to rectify salary injustice ...
V.
I found out today that our leadership has changed and many new things will be possible now. There were many injustices (especially as to horong procedures) before this change but now things can become very different.
It is not politically expedient for a state university to make trouble for the National Guard or for any of the military services. The right wing legislators will claim that the state univs. are disloyal and unworthy of support, and that they have buckets of mail from angry right-wing dittoheads. Even if there isn't any reaction from live voters, the right wing punditocracy/ "yellow journalists"/ hate radio hosts will make such a big stink that the moderate legislators may be less willing to fund higher ed. at a decent level.
The cure for speech should be more speech. If students want to put out informational material about the current problems being faced by Guard members*, let them do so in the form of FAQ pamphlets, posters, websites, tweets, etc . Traditional college students (18-22 yo) are legally adults, hold a variety of opinions, and should be given access to information of all sorts. They don't need condescension in the form of "protection". Remember, the recruiters can find other venues to contact these people.
*anything from overlong deployment, to poor quality materiel the actual Army would not use, to problems with the overburdened outpatient health care of the VA system, to loss of small professional practices and small businesses by owners (docs, lawyers, consultants) who could manage short but not long deployment, to the gross overstatement of education benefits of the armed services, to the obvious issues of stressed / broken families, physical danger, injury, PTSD, permanently incapacitating closed head injury, death
You are right, NancyP, as sad as it is to admit.
I was just shocked by the cynicism of the whole thing. It's only the second day of class, let's give thee kids a chance, maybe they will actually do well in school and enjoy it.
As to protecting the students, nobody sells cigarettes and alcohol on campus for some reason. I would have also loved it if some of the junk food vending machines were substituted with fresh fruit stands. There isn't a place on campus where I can buy an apple, and that is detrimental to my productivity. :-)
Clarrisa,
I am curious. Is it all job recruiting that you object to, or is it specifically the National Guard in particular that you find so objectionable? Am I wrong to assume that it is specifically the fact that it is the military nature of the organization that you object to? I would be much obliged if you could expand upon your thoughts so that I could understand what it is that provokes your ire.
In some respects the United States Military was in the forefront of change when it came to tangibly fighting racial discrimination. I am thinking here of the role played by the One-hundred-first Airborne Division when it was ordered to Littlerock Arkansas by Eisenhower. I am thinking of Harry Truman’s executive order 9981 which ended segregation by race in the U. S. Military. I am thinking of Robert McNamara’s Directive 5120.36 which allowed base commanders to forbid service members making use of businesses and housing providers that were discriminating against service members on the basis of race or religion. In many respects the U.S. military has been a great force for good.
Is that you object to the wars that the men and women of the military have fought in? If so I would remind you that we live in a republic and that when the military is asked to perform a task it does so at the biding of a civilian government which was freely elected. With the exception of our civil war the military has with few exceptions done exactly what it was charged to do by the democratically elected government of our country.
Please enlighten me.
The discussion has moved here: http://clarissasblog.com/2009/08/25/national-guard/
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