10 U.S.C. § 503 — Enlistments: recruiting campaigns; compilation of directory information

(a) Recruiting Campaigns

Each service secretary must run intensive recruiting campaigns. The goal is to get people to enlist in the Regular Army^*, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, Regular Marine Corps, Regular Coast Guard, and the Space Force.

The Secretary of Defense must keep working to make recruiting more effective. This includes advertising and market research aimed at possible recruits and the people who influence them, like parents and teachers. This can include recruiting programs run jointly by the armed forces^* or run by each branch on its own. A law that normally limits government advertising — Subchapter I of chapter 35 of title 44 — does not apply to this recruiting advertising.

If the military collects personally identifiable information ("PII") about a prospective recruit, it must keep that information confidential. Anyone who has access to that PII may not share it, except to use it for recruiting purposes allowed under this law or another law.

While running a recruiting campaign, the Secretary concerned^* must tell prospective recruits about the armed force's data collection policies. The Secretary must also let the prospective recruit choose not to take part in that data collection.

(b) Compilation of Directory Information

The Secretary of Defense may collect and put together "directory information" about students. This applies to students who are 17 or older, or in eleventh grade^* or higher, and who attend a secondary school in the United States or its territories, including Puerto Rico.

The Secretary may share this directory information with the armed forces for military recruiting. It cannot be shared or used for any other purpose.

The military cannot keep a person's directory information for more than three years after it was first collected.

This directory information must stay confidential. Anyone with access to it may not share it, except for the recruiting purpose described above.

The Secretary of Defense must write regulations to carry out this part. Those regulations must be given to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. Regulations written by the individual service secretaries must be as uniform as possible across the services.

Nothing in this part forces, or lets the Secretary of Defense force, a school to hand over directory information.

(c) Access to Secondary Schools

Any local school district that gets money under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 must let military recruiters onto its secondary school campuses to recruit students who are at least 17. That access must be at least as good as the access given to a private employer, a college, or another kind of recruiter.

If a recruiter asks, the district must also provide at least one in-person recruiting event, like a career fair, each school year.

If a recruiter asks, the district must — within 30 days — hand over students' names, addresses, school-provided emails, and phone and mobile numbers. This must happen even though another federal privacy law (section 444 of the General Education Provisions Act, 20 U.S.C. 1232g) might otherwise block it.

But a school cannot release a student's name, address, email, or phone number this way if the student or a parent has already asked the school not to release it without written parental permission. If that request has been made, the school needs written parental consent first. Schools must tell parents about this right to opt out.

If a school district denies a recruiter's request for access, here is what happens next:

First, the Secretary of Defense, working with the relevant service secretary, must assign a colonel (or, for the Navy, a captain) or a senior civilian executive to meet in person with the school district, at the district's own office, to try to work out access. That meeting should happen within 120 days of the denial.

Second, if the district still denies access after that meeting — or after 120 days pass and the district refused to meet — the Secretary of Defense must tell the governor of that state about the denial and ask for help getting access. This notice must go out within 60 days of the Secretary's decision. The Secretary must copy the Secretary of Education on this notice and on other related communications with the governor.

Third, if the district still denies access one full year after that governor notice, the Secretary must check whether the district is denying access to at least two of the armed forces (not counting the Coast Guard when it isn't part of the Navy). If so, the Secretary must notify Congress — specifically the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Senate committee handling health and education, the House education committee, both senators from that state, and the House member for that district.

These access rules do not apply to a private secondary school with a genuine religious objection to military service, if that objection can be proven through the school's own official documents.

The Secretary of Defense must send Congress a report by February 1 each year listing every access-denial notice sent out that year.

Finally, the section defines several terms: a "local educational agency" means a public school district as defined elsewhere in federal education law, or a private secondary school. "Recruiting access" means the access described above. "Senior executive" has the meaning given in a specific civil-service law (5 U.S.C. § 3132(a)(3)). "State" includes not just the 50 states but also Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. The "specified congressional committees" are the Senate and House Armed Services Committees plus the Senate health/education committee and the House education committee. "Member of the House of Representatives" also includes a non-voting Delegate or the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico.