October 13, 1964 – Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Vitalization Act

On this date, H.R. 9124, the “Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Vitalization Act of 1964” was enacted as Public Law 88-647 (78 Stat. 1063) and codified as Title 10, Section 2031 of the United States Code. As that law states, the purpose of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC — commonly pronounced “JAY-rotsee”) is “to instill in students in [the United States] secondary educational institutions the values of citizenship, service to the United States, and personal responsibility and a sense of accomplishment.”

President Lyndon Johnson explained in his signing statement on October 14:

The roots of the ROTC program reach back more than a century to 1862 when the Morrill Act required the land grant colleges to offer courses in military training. The program as we know it today is founded on the National Defense Act of 1916.”

As part of that 1916 act, high schools were authorized the loan of federal military equipment and the assignment of active duty military personnel as instructors.

In 1964, the Vitalization Act opened JROTC up to the other services and replaced most of the active duty instructors with retirees who worked for and were cost shared by the schools.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard each operate their own versions of the program for high school students. According to a Congressional Research Service report, 552,990 students were active in 3,432 units across the U.S. and Department of Defense schools overseas in fiscal year 2020.

The JROTC faculty is led by nearly 4,000 instructors who are retired from active duty, reserve duty, or National Guard Army service. Instructors are trained and qualified in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act 2007.

Approximately 40% of JROTC programs are in inner city schools, serving a student population of 50% minorities. A major component of the JROTC leadership and citizenship program is female Cadets (the name for JROTC students). Female Cadets make up 40% of the Cadet population.

Unfortunately, problems that plague the senior military services have extended to the junior services as well.

A New York Times investigation — which included an examination of thousands of court documents, investigative files and other records obtained through more than 150 public disclosure requests — has found that the program has repeatedly become a place where retired military officers prey on their teenage students:

In the past five years, The Times found, at least 33 J.R.O.T.C. instructors have been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students, far higher than the rate of civilian high school teachers in jurisdictions examined by The Times. Many others have been accused of misconduct but never charged.”

The Times goes on to report:

Victims have reported sexual assaults in classrooms and supply closets, during field trips or on late-night rides home, sometimes committed after instructors plied students with alcohol or drugs. One former student said her instructor told her that sexual submission was expected of women in the military. A recent cadet in Tennessee said her J.R.O.T.C. instructor warned that he had the skills to kill her without a trace if she told anyone about their sexual encounters. In Missouri, a student said she was forced to kneel at her instructor’s bedside, blindfolded, with a gun to her head.

The Times interviewed 13 victims, many of whom had strikingly similar stories: They were teenagers who came from disadvantaged backgrounds or who otherwise saw the military as a pathway to a promising future, then found that the instructors who fashioned themselves as mentors exploited their positions to manipulate and abuse.”

Needless to say, “J.R.O.T.C. leaders declined requests for interviews but pointed to research indicating that the program had a positive effect on school attendance and graduation rates. The U.S. Army Cadet Command, which sponsors the largest J.R.O.T.C. program, said in a statement that its instructors went through a ‘strenuous’ vetting process and that any allegations of misconduct were investigated, typically by the school districts that hired the J.R.O.T.C. instructors as civilian employees.”