[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 46 (Wednesday, April 12, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2588-S2590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           MILITARY RECRUITER ACCESS ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2000

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of S. 
2397, the Military Recruiter Access Enhancement Act of 2000. This bill 
is designed to assist armed services recruiters in gaining access to 
secondary schools and school student directory information for military 
recruiting purposes.
  The matter of recruiting and retaining military personnel of the 
highest quality and in the quantity needed to maintain the optimal 
personnel strength of our armed services has been a topic of great 
interest to myself and my colleagues on the Senate Armed Services 
Personnel Subcommittee.
  I have heard detailed testimony in hearings this year from top 
Department of Defense manpower officials and actual military 
recruiters--those on the front lines doing the recruiting--regarding 
the challenges of contacting and informing young people today about the 
benefits of a career in the military. As I have contemplated the 
detailed testimony received on the subject, it is clear there are 
several factors combining to make the tough job of recruiting young 
people for military service even tougher.
  We found the following: The combined effects of the strongest economy 
in 40 years, the lowest unemployment rate since the establishment of an 
all-volunteer force, and a declining propensity on the part of 
America's youth to serve in the military make the recruitment of 
persons for the Armed Forces unusually challenging in the economic 
climate in which we exist.
  For the recruitment of high quality men and women, each of the Armed 
Forces face intense competition from the other branches of the Armed 
Forces. They face competition from the private sector, and they face 
competition from postsecondary educational institutions recruiting 
young people as well.
  It is becoming increasingly difficult for the Armed Forces to meet 
their respective recruiting goals. Despite a variety of innovative 
approaches taken by recruiters and the extensive programs of benefits 
that are available for recruits, recruiters have to devote 
extraordinary time and effort to fill monthly requirements for 
immediate accessions.
  Unfortunately--and this is, I think, dismaying and surprising to most 
Americans--a number of high schools, thousands of high schools, have 
denied recruiters for the Armed Forces access to the students or to the 
student directory information of those high schools.

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  In 1999, there were 4,515 instances of denial of access to the Army. 
There were an additional 4,364 instances in the case of the Navy, 4,884 
instances in the case of the Marine Corps, and 5,465 instances of 
denial of access to Air Force recruiters. In total, there were over 600 
high schools across this country that denied access to at least three 
branches of the services, the largest of those school districts is San 
Diego, CA.
  As of the beginning of 2000, nearly one-fourth of all high schools 
nationwide did not release student directory information to Armed 
Forces recruiters.
  In testimony presented to the Committee on Armed Services of the 
Senate, recruiters of the Armed Forces stated that the single biggest 
obstacle to carrying out their recruiting mission is the denial of 
access to directory information about students, for a directory listing 
of high school students is the recruiter's basic tool. When directory 
information is not provided by schools, recruiters must spend valuable 
time, otherwise available for pursuing recruiting contacts, to 
construct a list from school yearbooks and other sources. This 
dramatically reduces both the number of students each recruiter can 
reach and the time available communicating with the students that the 
recruiters can eventually locate.
  The denial of direct access to students and denial of access to 
directory information unfairly hurts America's young people.
  High schools that deny access to military recruiters prevent students 
from receiving all of the information on the educational and training 
incentives offered by the Armed Forces, thus impairing the career 
decisionmaking process of students by limiting the availability of 
complete information on what options they have before them.
  The denial of access for Armed Forces recruiters to students or to 
directory information ultimately undermines our national defense by 
making it harder for our Armed Forces to recruit young Americans in the 
quantity and of the quality necessary for maintaining the readiness of 
the Armed Forces to provide national defense.
  The bill I have introduced legislates a series of formal steps to be 
taken with secondary schools that deny access to students or student 
directory information to recruiters.
  Step 1: The Department of Defense will be required to send a general 
officer or flag officer to visit the local education agency to arrange 
for recruiting access within 120 days following a report of access 
denial.
  Should a school say, no, we are not going to let military recruiters 
access, the first step is, negotiations. They would try to work this 
out. You would have a flag officer, or a general officer, who would go 
to the school, visit with the superintendent, the principal, the 
counselors, and find out what the problem is.
  Step 2: Should access still be denied, within 60 days of the visit in 
step 1, the Secretary of Defense must then notify the State's chief 
executive--presumably the Governor--of the denial and request his or 
her assistance. A copy of this request is also sent to the Secretary of 
Education.
  Step 3: If access for recruiters is still not achieved a year after 
the Governor has been notified--a full 18 months since the initial 
discovery that they are denying access--and if it is found that the 
school in question denies access for two or more of the Armed Services, 
that school will be placed on a list maintained by the Department of 
Defense and will be denied Federal funds until such time as recruiter 
access is restored.
  People may say that is having a heavy hand. May I say, there is no 
school in America that ought to ever lose Federal funding under this 
law because no school should ever have to deny access to military 
recruiters. There is an ample amount of time--a full 18 months--for 
negotiations, discussion, in bringing in the Governor of the State, to 
try the reconcile whatever problems there might be.
  I think the importance of this bill cannot be overstated. We have an 
obligation to provide an environment for our recruiters that, at the 
very least, places them on a level playing field with the recruiters of 
colleges and universities and with representatives from private 
industry.
  Today, the recruiting of high school students actually starts in 
junior high school for colleges, for universities, and even for 
private-sector jobs. To say a recruiter cannot have contact until that 
student is out of high school puts them at an incredible disadvantage.
  While DOD has had the ability to withhold Federal funding from 
colleges and universities which denied access to military recruiters, 
there has not been any significant recourse available at the secondary 
school level.
  In some cases, a few select administrators can make decisions about 
recruiter access based on their own personal bias or lack of 
familiarity with the positive aspects of military service. These 
``gatekeepers'' effectively block information from students by denying 
access to recruiters. These nonaccess policies may actually exist when 
the community at large in the school's area is very much supportive of 
the Armed Forces and recruiting efforts.
  We must work collectively as a nation to keep our military  
``connected'' with the people they serve. The concept of an all-
volunteer force will only continue to be successful when the 
compensatory benefit package we offer young people is competitive and 
the career information on current educational and financial incentives 
is readily available to potential recruits.

  There are those who are understandably concerned about maintaining 
the privacy of personal contact information. It is ironic, however, 
that student directory information is often shared by high schools with 
cap and gown companies, college recruiters, and private industry 
representatives, but denied to Armed Forces recruiters. We must take 
active steps to eliminate that sort of bias, whether intended or not, 
and reestablish an equal footing for our Armed Forces recruiters with 
other groups seeking to contact students. We must remember that 
recruiters represent the primary tool of not only the Department of 
Defense but Congress, as well, in fulfilling our constitutional 
requirements to raise and maintain an army, the Armed Forces.
  There is no doubt in my mind that the recruiting professionals in all 
branches of our Armed Forces are top-notch role models, fully capable 
of succeeding in their respective recruiting missions, but they need to 
have a supportive and conducive contact environment.
  This bill will provide school officials of institutions currently 
restricting access to recruiters with additional incentive to improve 
or restore that access.
  This bill will bring attention locally and nationally to the problems 
of access restriction to Armed Forces recruiters.
  This bill sends a clear signal to DOD leaders and to the people of 
our country that we recognize the problem recruiters face in supporting 
the concept of our all-volunteer force.
  This bill provides a reasonable and calculated approach to improving 
access with a phased escalation in the negative consequences for 
schools insisting upon perpetuating nonaccess policies. It is 
nonantagonistic, it is nonconfrontational, but it is firm.
  This bill does not attempt to dictate local practices from 
Washington, as some may charge. This bill merely requires schools to 
provide--and I quote from the bill's language--

       . . . the same access to secondary school students, and to 
     directory information concerning such students, as is 
     provided generally to post-secondary educational institutions 
     or to prospective employers of those students.

  We are just simply saying: Make the playing field level. If you are 
going to deny access to Army recruiters, Air Force recruiters, Marine 
recruiters, Navy recruiters, then we expect the same denial would be 
applied across the board to private industry recruiters and to colleges 
and universities. If you are going to provide access to private 
industry and to colleges and universities, likewise, that access must 
be provided under this legislation to those seeking to recruit for our 
Armed Forces.
  The size of our Armed Forces has decreased significantly over the 
past decade. The number of veterans is decreasing daily. Fewer and 
fewer young people today have a close relative or friend with military 
service experience. We have in the Congress a corporate responsibility 
to make an extra effort to

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invite young men and women to bring their talent into the service of 
their country and to take advantage of the outstanding educational and 
training benefits currently available. Few occupations offer the 
patriotic satisfaction of military service.
  A healthy all-volunteer force does not just happen. When I asked 
recruiters appearing before a recent Personnel Subcommittee hearing 
what Congress could do to help them bring the best and brightest into 
today's military, of course they responded that educational benefits 
would help, they responded that health care benefits would help, they 
responded that improving housing would  help. But equally important was 
their request for help in convincing parents and educators that 
enlisting their children and students was ``not the last choice'' but a 
first choice, and to help them gain access to students on school 
grounds and access to student directory information.

  In response to the DOD request for assistance, I would like to 
respond in two ways:
  First, by inviting all of my colleagues in the Senate, regardless of 
where they hail from, to join with me in pledging to visit one or more 
high schools in their home States this year and to promote military 
service as an attractive career opportunity while addressing students 
and facility members. This is one positive step we can all take to 
demonstrate our support for a healthy Armed Forces recruiting process.
  Secondly, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, the Military 
Recruiter Access Enhancement Act of 2000, in an enthusiastic and 
bipartisan fashion. We want and need the brightest and the best to 
serve in our Armed Forces. I cannot help but think of the many 
outstanding citizens in all walks of life, indeed, including many of my 
esteemed colleagues right here in the Senate, who began their adult 
lives with service to our Nation in one of the branches of the Armed 
Services. We owe it to the recruiters of our services to do all we can 
to help them succeed in their tireless efforts to bring in quality men 
and women for the defense of our country.
  Mr. President, I thank you for your indulgence and thank the Senator 
from Texas for her willingness to yield to me this time and for her 
tireless efforts on behalf of tax relief for the families in this 
country.
  I yield the floor.

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