Conscription is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1–8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force.
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 were unconstitutional because they exceeded the powers granted to the US Congress under the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Along with United States v. Lopez (1995), it was part of a series of Rehnquist Court cases that limited Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause.
The Selective Service System (SSS) is an independent agency of the United States government that maintains information on U.S. citizens and other U.S. residents potentially subject to military conscription and carries out contingency planning and preparations for two types of draft: a general draft based on registration lists of men aged 18–25, and a special-skills draft based on professional licensing lists of workers in specified health care occupations. In the event of either type of draft, the Selective Service System would send out induction notices, adjudicate claims for deferments or exemptions, and assign draftees classified as conscientious objectors to alternative service work. All male U.S. citizens and immigrant non-citizens who are between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of their 18th birthdays, and must notify the Selective Service within ten days of any changes to any of the information they provided on their registration cards, such as a change of address. The Selective Service System is a contingency mechanism for the possibility that conscription becomes necessary.
In the United States, military conscription, commonly known as the draft, has been employed by the U.S. federal government in six conflicts: the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The fourth incarnation of the draft came into being in 1940, through the Selective Training and Service Act; this was the country's first peacetime draft. From 1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the U.S. Armed Forces that could not be filled through voluntary means. Active conscription in the United States ended in 1973, when the U.S. Armed Forces moved to an all-volunteer military. However, conscription remains in place on a contingency basis; all male U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live, and male immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, residing within the United States, who are 18 through 25 are required to register with the Selective Service System. United States federal law also continues to provide for the compulsory conscription of men between the ages of 17 and 44 who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, U.S. citizens, and additionally certain women, for militia service pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and 10 U.S. Code § 246.
Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case which decided that benefits given by the United States military to the family of service members cannot be given out differently because of sex. Frontiero is an important decision in several respects, including the fact that it informed the military establishment that in terms of pay, allowances and general treatment, women must be considered on an equal plane as men. However, the Court did not issue a broad decision requiring the military to prove in the courts its reasons for excluding women from combat positions.
Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that statutory or administrative sex classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The case was argued by future Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while she was working for the American Civil Liberties Union.
United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, ruling that a criminal prohibition against burning a draft card did not violate the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. Though the court recognized that O'Brien's conduct was expressive as a protest against the Vietnam War, it considered the law justified by a significant government interest unrelated to the suppression of speech and was tailored towards that end.
The Selective Service Act of 1917 or Selective Draft Act authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription. It was envisioned in December 1916 and brought to President Woodrow Wilson's attention shortly after the break in relations with Germany in February 1917. The Act itself was drafted by then-Captain Hugh S. Johnson after the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany. The Act was canceled with the end of the war on November 11, 1918. The Act was upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in 1918.
The National Coalition for Men (NCFM), formerly the National Coalition of Free Men, is a non-profit educational and civil rights organization which aims to address the ways sex discrimination affects men and boys. The organization has sponsored conferences, adult education, demonstrations and lawsuits. NCFM is the United States' oldest generalist men's rights organization. It professes to being politically neutral, neither conservative nor liberal.
Gray Hampton Miller is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of [congressional] power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Bernard Daniel Rostker was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1977 to 1979; Director of the United States Selective Service System from 1979 to 1981; Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1994 to 1998; Under Secretary of the Army from 1998 to 2000; and Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness in 2000–2001. From 1996 to 2001, he also served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Gulf War Illnesses.
Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that it was unconstitutional to prohibit anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to distribute nonprescription contraceptives to persons 16 years of age or over, to prohibit the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives by any adult to minors under 16 years of age, and to prohibit anyone, including licensed pharmacists, to advertise or display contraceptives.
Elgin v. Department of the Treasury, 567 U.S. 1 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case where the Court ruled that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) gives exclusive jurisdiction for claims under the Act to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Additionally, the Court held that the Act bars federal district courts from ruling on matters related to the act including adverse employment actions of the federal departments, and allows the Merit Systems Protection Board to hear constitutional arguments for wrongful employee severance and adverse employment actions. It was a 6–3 decision, with the majority opinion delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas. The case greatly limited the recourse of federal employees to the courts for adverse employment practices, allowing such recourse only to a few, specific courts as aforementioned.
United States v. Kebodeaux, 570 U.S. 387 (2013), was a recent case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sex Offender Notification and Registration Act (SORNA) was constitutional under the Necessary and Proper Clause.
Conscription, sometimes called "the draft", is the compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most often a military service. Men have been subjected to military drafts in most cases. Currently only two countries conscript women and men on the same formal conditions: Norway and Sweden.
Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199 (1977), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that the different treatment of men and women mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 402(f)(1)(D) constituted invidious discrimination against female wage earners by affording them less protection for their surviving spouses than is provided to male employees, and therefore violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The case was brought by a widower who was denied survivor benefits on the grounds that he had not been receiving at least one-half support from his wife when she died. Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the court, ruling unconstitutional the provision of the Social Security Act which set forth a gender-based distinction between widows and widowers, whereby Social Security Act survivors benefits were payable to a widower only if he was receiving at least half of his support from his late wife, while such benefits based on the earnings of a deceased husband were payable to his widow regardless of dependency. The Court found that this distinction deprived female wage earners of the same protection that a similarly situated male worker would have received, violating due process and equal protection.
Iancu v. Brunetti, No. 18–302, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a Supreme Court of the United States case related to the registration of trademarks under the Lanham Act. It decided 6–3 that the provisions of the Lanham Act prohibiting registration of trademarks of "immoral" or "scandalous" matter is unconstitutional by permitting the United States Patent & Trademark Office to engage in viewpoint discrimination, which violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.
National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System was a court case that was first decided in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on February 22, 2019, declaring that requiring men but disallowing women to register for the draft for military service in the United States was unconstitutional. The ruling did not specify which actions the government needed to take to resolve the conflict with the constitution. That ruling was reversed by the Fifth Circuit.
Marc Etienne Angelucci was an American attorney, men's rights activist, and the vice-president of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM). As a lawyer, he represented several cases related to men's rights issues, most prominently National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, in which the federal judge declared the male-only selective-service system unconstitutional. He was found murdered at his home on July 11, 2020.
