Should your high school tell the military where you live? The 2002 education law requires that schools give military recruiters student-contact information--or else lose federal funds. (opinion).

YES

Students deserve to be informed about all of the options available to them as they decide what their post-high-school ambitions hold. Unfortunately, many never learn about the career and educational opportunities available to them in the United States military.

According to the armed forces, there were nearly 19,000 instances in the year 2000 when military recruiters were denied access to schools across the country. The Pentagon estimates that 2,000 schools have policies banning military, but not collegiate, recruiters. In some cases, the military is barred from school campuses solely because of an administrator's personal bias or act of protest.

Students shouldn't suffer because of their administrators' beliefs. They and their parents should be able to decide what information they want at their disposal as they evaluate their plans for life after graduation.

That is what the military-recruiter provision in the No Child Left Behind Act enforces. If a school receives federal funds, then it must grant the military the same access to campus that it would give to colleges, universities, and other post-secondary institutions.

The law also requires schools to share student data with the military, but it includes important opt-out dames. If parents do not want their child's information shared with the military, that request will be honored. Schools are obligated to inform parents of this right. Second, if a school (like a Quaker school) has a faith-based objection to the military, then it does not have to provide its students' information to them.

Our country is protected by an all-volunteer military. It is critical that we at least give the option to our talented young men and women to consider a career in the military. It's challenging enough maintaining an all-volunteer force without having recruiters denied access to schools that receive federal funding.

Allowing the military the opportunity to recruit on school campuses is not only in the best interests of America, but it is in the best interests of our students as well.

CONGRESSMAN DAVID VITTER
(R-Louisiana)

NO

High schools should not give military recruiters access to student information--not unless the student or his or her parents specifically say it's OK.

In 2002 Congress passed a law requiring school districts to provide student names, addresses, and phone numbers to branches of the U.S. military upon request. But that same law requires schools to give students and their parents the opportunity to give their consent before the information is released. Informed consent, freely given, is really the critical issue here.

That's why we're advising schools that, before they release personal information, they should send home a form that does three things: (1) lets students and their parents choose whether or not they want the school to share their contact information with recruiters; (2) explains that if the form is not returned, the school will assume that authorization to release information has not been given (making it an "opt-in" process); and (3) is translated into the various languages spoken by immigrant families whose children attend that school.

The principle at stake here is the right to privacy, and central to this right is having control over your own personal information and the ability to grant or deny access to others. The purpose of the law passed by Congress is to make it easier for the military to recruit high-school students through telephone and mail solicitations. Some students may want to receive calls from military recruiters, but others may not, and that should be their choice.

Protecting students and their families from unsolicited letters and phone calls from the military is especially important today. Since Sept. 11, there has been enormous pressure to participate in patriotic displays. Students from immigrant families--some of whom have seen neighbors detained and even deported by federal agents--may feel intimidated by military recruiters and may fear retaliation if they don't agree to sign up. That is why administrators should bend over backwards to make sure that all members of their school community understand their rights.

DONNA LIEBERMAN
Executive Director
New York Civil Liberties Union