The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

Book review: They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms | Versión en español

January-March 2025 / Isidro Ortiz, PhD / Draft NOticesDraft NOtices - Written by acclaimed investigative journalist Mike Hixenbaugh, this book is worth an earnest read because of its focus, timeliness and documentation. It will be of interest to a diverse audience, especially those concerned with public schools and their roles and impact on youth development in society, and how elements of the Right have managed to achieve political power.

COMD, Project YANO and other organizations engaged in counter-recruitment and anti-militarism work have long recognized public schools as sites of ideological and political contestation. Fueled by this understanding, they have struggled to influence policies and practices like the involuntary placement of students in JROTC. Regrettably, as this book makes clear, they have not been the only ones to recognize the role of schools in shaping the country’s political climate.

In a clearly written exposé that draws from interviews and secondary sources such as school district records, Hixenbaugh chronicles the recent rise of a Christian conservative campaign that targets education policy. He tells how this movement is not just an attempt to convert public schools into private institutions but encompasses a powerful drive involving the imposition of Biblical values in schools, the banning of books, the redesign of curricula and the limiting of the rights of students of color and LGBTQ students. To his credit, he does so with clear investment in the outcomes of this campaign, searching for glimmers of hope that resistance to the movement will spread and succeed.

Feb 2, 2025 / Edward Hasbrouck / Antiwar -  According to an exclusive report by Fox News, the Oversight Project of the Heritage Foundation is filing Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Selective Service System and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records of how many “illegal immigrants” may have violated US law by failing to register with the SSS for a possible future military draft. Fox News quotes the FOIA request as alleging that, “there is widespread criminal non-compliance by such aliens”.

The Oversight Project appears to misunderstand both immigration and Selective Service law. With respect to “illegal immigrants”, seeking asylum isn’t illegal – it’s a human right. By international treaty, penalties cannot lawfully be imposed on refugees for “illegal entry or presence”. And failing to register with the Selective Service System is a crime only if it is “knowing and willful”, which it usually isn’t. Most immigrants are unaware, until the question comes up on an application for naturalization, that they are supposed to sign up for a possible U.S. draft even if they aren’t U.S. citizens.