Davis Students Against War

This organization is now defunct, and has been succeeded by Davis Students Against War Resource

Davis Students Against War, or DSAW is a student effort to voice the youth's opposition to war, including current and future conflict. It is part of the national Campus Antiwar Network. They are not an official student organization.

The group has not had any recent activity, and a new group has formed.

The Davis Students Against War Resource is the new group formed in March of 2007 by Katie Davalos and Juliana Haber. To View their current activities check their wiki page, Davis Students Against War Resource

Past Event(s)/Achievements

They helped pass an anti-military recruiter bill through ASUCD during Fall 2005 ("An Associated Students of the University of California, Davis resolution asking the University of California, Davis administration to uphold the Principles of Community in regards to military recruitment at UC Davis," SR-08).

However, what they do not tell you is how the entire UC system acquired their land to teach to us college students the lessons and criteria that we are learning. The United States Federal Government gave the system the land in a form of a grant. Within that grant, there was a piece that said that the UC system can have this grant, if and only if the military can have its presence there. Guess what the UC system did? That's right, you're all smart cookies, they did accept it. So guess what, if the UC's try to eject the military presence they will have to pay back the entire grant that was given to them, and that my ladies and gents is a lot and I mean a lot of money.

Secondly, what is the real harm with recruiters on a college UC campus? We can all see how recruiters on a high school campus can be very controversial as high schoolers are just about to enter the next step of their lives by turning 18 years of age, thus opening a world of choices to themselves. But you students at a UC level college... are you oppose to recruiters because you do not trust yourselves to make your own decisions? Because you fear that the evil recuiters at military personnel will some how seduce you into join the Army? Grow up, if you cannot make your own choices, you should have never made it to the UC system in the first place. -FirstsaddamLasthussein

2005-12-16 22:42:59   We've all heard this assertion before, but it relies on an oversimple notion of free will: e.g., "Free will is constant. It doesn't matter if you're born with half a brain or if you're raised in a slum, and therefore you have the same freedom as everyone else—so stop whining about how tough the world is and start exercising your inviolable freedom of choice!" Such a position relies on historicism and argument from authority. This is to stand on crumbling ground, and there is no way out. ‘Tis the Fixation of Belief. —ZacharyNorwood

2005-12-17 12:58:09   FirstsaddamLasthussein, could you please visit the Wiki Ethics page? Page content is meant for reasonably objective material. Leave your comments below the comment line and try to play nice. CraigBrozinsky

2005-12-17 13:23:45   Actually, the problem is that Mr. Anon's comments have nothing to do with Davis Students Against War. They have to do with the stuff DSAW talks about, but nothing to do with the group itself. If I could integrate the comments into the entry, I would. As it is, the comments don't really belong here... they belong on a Wikipedia page or blog. —JabberWokky

2005-12-17 13:36:45   I wasn't sure what to do with the comments, they were too entertaining to delete so quickly...gave me a laugh while studying last night. —JamesSchwab

2005-12-17 14:23:14   I think people forget how interconnected things really are. I highly doubt that if we kept the military off campuses, we would be asked for tons of money. The UCs are kind of a major draw for California. I don't think the CA government wants to be known as the people who took a big fat poop on their own university system (since they already get blamed for that for gradeschool). —SS

2005-12-17 18:48:54   I highly doubt that there was a clause requiring "military presence" as a precondition for the land grant. Can FSLH prove it? Requiring payback is just laughably absurd. Also, how much money is in a ton? —SteveDavison

2005-12-18 01:29:47   An article. Not the law itself, but mentions it several times. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to referee a campus clash between gay rights supporters and the Pentagon over a law that strips federal funding from colleges that refuse to treat military recruiters the same as other employers. —ES

2005-12-18 01:30:11   Wait! Here it is: The law, known as the Solomon Amendment, denies virtually all federal funding to a university — not just Defense Department contracts but also medical and scientific research funds and labor, transportation and Department of Education grants — if any of its branches denies equal access and services to military recruiters. For UC, the penalties would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. —ES

2005-12-18 21:07:06   Thank you Edwin, saved me a head ache. —FirstsaddamLasthussein

2005-12-18 21:51:09   Note that the Solomon Amendment is under dispute. See information about FAIR v. Rumsfeld. —BrentLaabs

• It is at dispute, but not about whether it's fair to deny funding, but because of the militarys stance on those openly homosexuals. I havn't looked too deeply into it, but at the surface it seems that they say what the recruiters represent breaks a lot of the anti-discrimination policies of school's anti-discriminaiton policies. That article I linked above from the chronicle has a lot more complete info. Is it only law schools? I'm curious what will come of it. As it stands, I don't really care about recruiters, but I do care about funding. —ES

2005-12-19 23:47:56   Just for the record, the "Solomon Amendment" was signed in 1996 and had/has nothing to do with land grants. —SteveDavison

2006-01-08 20:33:13   Hello all. As a founding member of DSAW and the originator of this article, I apologize for not seeing to clearing up some things until just now. DSAW's not primarily concerned with land grant issues in the UC, but with stopping all unjust wars around the world, the most egregious example that we can currently do something about being the war in Iraq. We oppose militarization at the cost of freedom, and believe that military recruitment on highschool and college campuses has such a cost as long as the poverty draft and "don't ask, don't tell" policies exist.

It is true that UC Davis is a land grant university, but I believe I am safe in assuming "FirstsaddamLasthussein" has never taken a course in such a subject (check out Lubell's class on public lands management, ESP172, I believe). The Solomon act was basically a punitive measure to stop a public outcry like that that occurred during Vietnam to hurt recruiting efforts (since an outright draft is no longer politically feasible, and for good reason). It has NOTHING to do with public land grants. It simply has to do with current federal funding. The Soloman Act was sadly upheld by the Supreme Court, and so the ASUCD resolution (which i wouldn't call a "current initiative" anymore, "past achievement" fits better) does not call explicitly for recruiters to be kicked off campus. —KarlDuesterberg

2006-03-21 20:04:23   It appears that the user known as HibiJibi wanted people to look at an alternative viewpoint. —JasonAller

2006-11-14 13:48:32   Land grant universities don't necessarily have to have recruiters, but they have to have ROTC programs. That is what is stipulated in the actual grant itself. though how rightful that is could still be brought up because ROTC programs also violate many anti discrimination laws in university policy. the issue isn't so much can we decide for ourselves whether to enter the military or not. the question is, does military recruitment belong on a college campus. —PatrickHanners