Seth Kershner is a PhD candidate in the history department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is coauthor of Breaking the War Habit: The Debate over Militarism in American Education, and Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools. His work has also appeared in Rethinking Schools, The Global Sixties, and In These Times.
Using the enlistment crisis as justification, Project 2025 proposed measures for high schools that blur the lines between career guidance and military recruitment. The Trump administration seems likely to further embed the military in public education.
A recent string of revelations about abuses by the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps presents an opportunity to rein in the military’s presence and power in public schools.
Inside the fight against JROTC, a Pentagon program that targets working-class teenagers at public schools.