ACLU settles recruiter lawsuit

by Caleb Fort

Daily Lobo

The American Civil Liberties Union and Albuquerque Public Schools finalized the details of a lawsuit settlement earlier this month.

The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU in May 2005, alleged that APS gave students' contact information to military recruiters without giving students a chance to withhold their information.

Giving students' information such as names and phone numbers to recruiters without giving students and parents a chance to deny the military access to the information is a violation of the No Child Left Behind Act, said Karen Meyers, ACLU attorney.

"We have a right in this country to decide whether we want our information to be given out like that," she said. "This lawsuit is important because it protects the privacy of our students. If we have rights, we need to stand up for them."

Any secondary school that receives federal funding must give students' names, addresses and telephone numbers to colleges and military recruiters who request the information, according to the act. However, if students or parents request their information be withheld, the school must comply, and "must notify parents of the option to make a request," according to the act.

Under the settlement, APS will include information in its registration packet about how to withhold information from recruiters, Meyers said. APS also paid the ACLU $20,000 in attorney fees, she said.

However, APS complied with the act before the lawsuit was filed, said Rigo Ch†vez, APS spokesman.

"For the past couple of years we had been putting into registration packets information about the act," he said. "We had also been sending out information periodically throughout the year."

He said the settlement will not change how APS operates, but will make the notices an official part of the schools' official procedures.

"All we did was agree to put into procedure what we had been doing in practice," he said. "There was no formal procedural directive that outlined what we had been doing, but that doesn't mean it wasn't getting done."

However, the lack of an official policy meant students' rights under the act often went ignored, Meyers said.

"APS took inadequate action, and was not consistent," she said. "Some schools made more of an effort than others, because APS did not have a districtwide practice."

UNM student Tarun Gudz said APS should not give information to recruiters without permission from students and parents.

"Recruiters are getting you to sign away three to four years of your life, and you're barely even old enough to know what you want to do," she said. "So I definitely would say it shouldn't be happening, and it kind of lowers my opinion of APS."

Gudz was glad the ACLU filed the lawsuit, she said. However, they should not have settled out of court, because winning the lawsuit would send a stronger message, she said.

Meyers was happy with the outcome of the lawsuit, because APS changed its policy, she said.

Ch†vez said APS settled the lawsuit "to get it out of the way."

The problem is probably not isolated to APS, Meyers said. The ACLU is looking into other school districts across the state that may not be giving students an adequate chance to withhold their information.

The outcome of this lawsuit will have a positive effect on the rest of the state, she said.

"I hope that other schools will see that it's really very easy to comply," she said. "And that there's really no reason not to comply."