Recruitment and resistance.

On March 9, 2005, three students from City College of New York (CUNY) were protesting the presence of military recruiters at a Career Fair and were charged with misdemeanor counts of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace. The CCNY administration suspended the three students and barred them from classes (ZNet/Youth, March 16, 2005). Educators to Stop the War, a CUNY faculty anti-war group, demanded that the charges be dropped and the suspensions lifted. The Nonviolent Activist (April 2005) explained that twice earlier in the semester, "students peacefully protested military recruiters at City College and, as a result, the recruiters had to pack up and leave. This time, campus security was ready for the students, who had announced their intention to protest. With almost as many security guards as protestors, the security guards began brutalizing and arresting the students after they had left the job fair."

On the same day, at San Francisco State, students faced the same attacks as their counter recruitment protest escalated. Six organizations that endorsed the demonstration received letters from the administration concerning disciplinary proceedings against them. Watch a video of the protest at http://indybay.org/uploads/ collegenotcombat.mov.

For more information and how you can help, contact Students Against War ([e-mail]).

Unreported in the national media were the successful attempts by Seattle Central Community College students to force army recruiters off campus on January 20, 2005. This action was particularly promising because students who hold full or part-time jobs while attending college organized it across class and race lines. For the full story, with photos, go to http://montages. blogspot.com/2005/01/seattle-central -community-college.html.

Advertising students at New York University are running a marketing campaign for the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA-NYU partnership was organized by EdVenture, a marketing firm that provides "both one-of-a-kind educational value to students and educators while reciprocally providing clients with marketing, brand building, research, sales and recruiting access to campuses across the country" (Washington Square News, February 15, 2005). A recruiting event sponsored by the advertising class was cancelled after the Campus Antiwar Network called a protest demanding the CIA abandon its recruiting program at NYU.

Elite universities are beginning to offer R.O.T.C. a place on their campuses, especially with the financial aid R.O.T.C. offers at this time of soaring tuition hikes (The New York Times, May 1, 2005).

The ActForChange activism update of May 16, 2005 has the featured action to "Protect Children From Military Recruiters." Buried deep within the No Child Left Behind Act is a provision that requires public high schools to hand over the private contact information of students to military recruiters. If a school does not comply, it risks losing vital federal education funds. However, the Student Privacy Protection Act of 2005 amends section 9528 of No Child Left Behind to prohibit military recruiters from contacting students unless these minors and their parents specifically "opt in" and consent to receive such communications. Working Assets has created a website that mares it easy for parents to "opt out" their children from the military recruitment lists public schools are required to provide. For information, go to www.LeaveMyChildAlone.org.