SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The San Francisco Board of Education is considering expelling the Junior ROTC program from the city's high schools because of the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays.

A resolution introduced Tuesday would end the city's relationship with JROTC by the 2007-2008 academic year. It argues that the military's ban on openly gay soldiers violates the district's equal rights policy for gays.

"If the military said, 'You can't be openly Jewish or you can't be openly Catholic,' I don't think we would have stood for it," said Mark Sanchez, the measure's author and the board's only gay member.

Some 1,625 students participate in Junior ROTC at seven San Francisco public high schools.

Under the proposal, which calls the military policy on gays a "state-sanctioned act of homophobia," a school board committee would develop a program with similar physical fitness aims, but without military ties.

Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said he didn't know of any school district that has barred JROTC from its campuses.

The resolution will come up for a final vote next month.

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