As members of the RPI community, we all have e-mail addresses. While e-mail has certainly brought with it many advantages, it also carries with it the burden caused by those sending unsolicited bulk e-mail messages. Receiving unscrupulous messages about fraudulent lotteries or drugs is easy to write off as annoying, but a recent set of unsolicited e-mails does not fit into this category at all. The United States military has now gotten into the act as well, and RPI, somewhat trapped as an institution of higher education receiving federal funds, is helping them out.
This month, several people received multiple e-mail messages from a U.S. Navy recruiter seeing if they were interested in joining. A check of the Internet headers confirmed that the unsolicited e-mails did, in fact, come from the military. According to the Navy, the messages were sent out to students based on information supplied by RPI’s registrar in compliance with the Solomon Amendment. It and related legislation state that RPI must provide military recruiters with personal information for all of its students who are at least 17 years old or risk losing federal funding, grants, etc. According to the Navy, this can be in the form of snail mail or e-mail addresses—Rensselaer chose to provide e-mail addresses.
While we understand that the military is having a very hard time recruiting, given the number of troops actively deployed, we find it reprehensible that they have resorted to sending spam. It’s bad enough that many students spend a significant amount of time wading through unsolicited e-mails; they don’t need the Department of Defense to add to that burden. These e-mails are certainly not going to fix the recruiting problem of the armed forces; if anything, they might work to degrade their image in the eyes of prospective recruits.
We are also disappointed in the registrar’s office for providing the military with our personal information. They are not completely at fault, though, as they are only complying with the Solomon Amendment. At the same time, however, they could have given them our snail mail addresses, or offered us the option given on another university’s website: Those who wish to have their name and info withheld from recruiters could contact the registrar’s office. Having said that, the best option available would be for RPI and other universities to work together and pressure Congress and the military to abandon this draconian rule.
