Dear Friends and Allies,
We are very proud to announce that the BAY-Peace Youth Action Team’s Youth Manifesto Campaign has made history! On May 12th, the Oakland Board of Education took a strong stand against aggressive military recruiting in OUSD schools by passing the Student Privacy and Equal Access Resolution. Thanks to their efforts, the $5 billion military recruiting machine will no longer have such an easy time targeting Oakland youth.

The passing of this resolution, which was presented to the Board by the BAY-Peace Youth Action Team, working in partnership with the American Friends Service Committee, makes the OUSD the first school district in the country to offer students the opportunity to opt out of having their personal information sold to the military by the JAMRS private military recruiting data base.

JAMRS—a massive database of 30 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 25 for military recruitment purposes—stands for "Joint Advertising Market Research Studies." The JAMRS database is funded by the Department of Defense with the goal of maximizing recruitment efforts, and includes information such as name, date of birth, gender, mailing address, e-mail address, race and ethnicity, telephone number, high school name, graduation date, Grade Point Average, college intent, military interest, field of study, and the ASVAB Test score.

The Student Privacy and Equal Access Resolution also puts the No Child Left Behind opt out form on the high school students’ emergency card, mandates informational assemblies at every high school to inform students of their right to opt out of both databases, and strengthens existing OUSD policy that prohibits the ASVAB tests from being offered in Oakland schools, and establishes a standard procedure for campus access for all military and non-military recruiters.

Thanks, love and appreciation to all the individuals and organizations that have helped us win this campaign! Please help us spread the word to other communities where youth are being targeted.

 
PS: We could really use your support to help us continue to serve Oakland youth in the years to come.  Would you consider sending us a tax-deductible donation today to keep us strong for tomorrow?  Use the link below to connect with the secure PayPal account of our fiscal sponsor, Peace Development Fund.

Would you like to bring the Youth Manifesto to your school district? Let us know how we can help.
If you have questions or comments, email youthaction@baypeace.org or call 510-863-1737