Congress Expands Scrutiny of Junior R.O.T.C. Programs

Congressional leaders have expanded their scrutiny of the navy’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corps program, asking for details about this system’s enrollment practices, curriculum and sponsor relationships with the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation.

In a letter despatched this week to the Pentagon and Division of Schooling, 4 senators mentioned they had been “disturbed” by a New York Occasions article that detailed how some excessive faculties had been mechanically inserting freshmen into the military-sponsored packages at public excessive faculties, at occasions over the objections of the scholars or their mother and father.

“The Occasions investigation raises considerations that the implementation of this program could also be violating college students’ civil rights by forcing them into the J.R.O.T.C. program and its necessary necessities,” the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by 4 senators, together with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who’s poised to guide a subcommittee targeted on navy personnel, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who now leads the Senate committee that oversees training issues. Within the Home, two lawmakers with navy backgrounds — Representatives Ted Lieu of California and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania — have additionally been analyzing the difficulty.

J.R.O.T.C. packages function as a partnership between the navy, which certifies retired officers and noncommissioned officers to guide the courses, and native faculties, which make use of the instructors. This system now operates in 1000’s of faculties, instructing half 1,000,000 college students a yr about matters reminiscent of marksmanship, navy historical past and life abilities.

Many directors and college students have praised this system for instructing youngsters accountability and giving them steering throughout adolescence. The Pentagon has additionally mentioned that college students who take part usually tend to enlist — a key difficulty at a time when navy recruiters have been struggling to fulfill their targets.

The Occasions article on computerized J.R.O.T.C. enrollment discovered that dozens of faculties had made this system necessary or steered greater than 75 p.c of scholars in a single grade into the courses. That included faculties in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Oklahoma Metropolis and Cell, Ala.

The Occasions individually reported that the J.R.O.T.C. program’s textbooks included outdated gender messages and accounts of historic occasions that falsified or downplayed U.S. authorities failures. One other article detailed what number of J.R.O.T.C. instructors had sought N.R.A. funding to help marksmanship groups whereas vowing to advertise the N.R.A. at their faculties or encourage college students to take part in N.R.A. fund-raising actions.

The senators requested Pentagon and training officers for details about these practices, saying it was “unfathomable why J.R.O.T.C. instructors assume it will be applicable to direct college students to volunteer for N.R.A. fund-raising.”

Of their letter, the lawmakers have requested the Schooling Division and Protection Division to reply to a collection of questions. They embody inquiries about whether or not participation in J.R.O.T.C. is supposed to be voluntary, whether or not the businesses have acquired studies about pressured enrollment, whether or not the Pentagon was conscious of relationships between the N.R.A. and J.R.O.T.C. packages and what processes are in place to evaluate J.R.O.T.C. textbooks.

Lawmakers have been scrutinizing J.R.O.T.C. since final yr, when The Occasions reported that at the least 33 of this system’s instructors had been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving college students over a five-year interval. That included a number of instances wherein instructors charged with misconduct had beforehand been the topic of complaints that had not been acted on.

At a Home oversight committee listening to final yr, Pentagon officers expressed outrage concerning the abuse and had been reviewing insurance policies to standardize oversight of this system and enhance coordination with faculty districts.

In latest correspondence with the senators, the Pentagon mentioned that the navy companies acquired 114 allegations of violence, sexual abuse or sexual harassment by instructors over the past 10 years. Nearly all of these instances resulted in instructors being faraway from this system, the Pentagon mentioned.