The Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities analyzed school district enrollment data for 2022.
A graph of school district data compiled by the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities shows schools with higher enrollment percentage of non-white students (blue line) tend to have higher enrollment rates in JROTC (orange line).
At Lincoln High — where nearly all students are nonwhite — more than a third of students enrolled in JRTOC.
At majority-white Point Loma High, that rate was just 5%.
La Jolla High, in one of the district’s wealthiest neighborhoods, doesn’t have a JROTC program.
Davíd Morales was part of the student movement against JROTC in 2008.
Now, he’s a counter-recruitment activist, pursuing a Ph.D. in racial inequalities in education at Stanford.
He said there’s a reason JROTC programs have lower enrollment at schools in wealthier neighborhoods.
“You have parents who are much more involved because they have the means and privilege to be involved and aware of what's happening. And they're not going to stand for their kids being constantly harassed by military recruiters or being pitched a job in the military,” he said.
He said students in lower-income areas are also more susceptible to what he called the deception of military recruiters.
“It is true that for some people, some communities, the options are limited, and that's unfortunate. And they are very much more open to being, or likely are easier to target by recruiters because of this situation. We think this is predatory,” he said. “We've called this a Poverty Draft in some cases.”
He said alternatives to JROTC should be explored.
“There are other ways to engage in practice discipline that do not include weapons and blindly obeying and following orders that instead encourage critical thinking skills,” he said. “That does not include careers in war-making.”
“We must instead focus on careers for peace and social justice,” he said.
His sentiments were shared by other local members of the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities and the Chicano/Latino Concilio on Higher Education.
They are calling for an evidence-based review of the effectiveness of the JROTC program.
