Recruiting on Federally Funded Campuses

Returning to military recruiting tactics, the US Government is trying to establish its recruiting tactics onto college campuses that disagree with some of the ideals behind the functioning of the military. Many cite the Pentagon’s policy toward homosexuals as their point of contention. The article can be found at msnbc.com

The schools that are trying to continue denying recruiting on their campuses may face the withdrawal of federal funding for their school. In the same way that many private companies donate to schools and receive certain privileges for their donations, the government would like to have the benefit of using the campus to recruit.

As we talked about in class, recruitment efforts for the military need more outlets. With the need for more military personnel to continue the War on Terror, it would be beneficial to have recruiters in as many locations as possible, and able to reach as many students as they can.

Right now, the debate is whether or not the funding should require the schools to allow recruitment. I can understand the feelings of the government. It is paying to provide education for the students of the school, but is not necessarily able to reap any of the benefits of its investment. Without being allowed to recruit on the campus, they do not have access to as many individuals as they do by sitting in their recruiting offices in town.

As far as the schools are concerned, their problem is that they don’t allow organizations with discriminatory policies on campus, which would include the “don’t’ ask, don’t tell” policy of the military. They believe that the integrity of the school would be damaged if they were to being to allow recruiting. I think that if they are able to overlook this policy to accept federal money, they should be able to overlook it to allow recruiting on campus.