A likely future Supreme Court case.
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In the United States, men between the ages of 18 and 25 and residing in the county with limited exception are required to sign up and maintain their registration in the Selective Service System, established by the Military Selective Service Act. Failure to register or maintain that can lead to fines and prison, and prevents one from several government benefits such as federally-backed student loans or employment in the federal sector. Women, not required to serve involuntarily, are not required to register. At the time it was established, the military did not allow women to serve in combat roles. The law was challenged on the basis of gender discrimination, leading to the 1981 Supreme Court case Rostker v. Goldberg. The Supreme Court ruled that the practice of requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional on the basis that women were restricted from serving in combat roles.
Between 2013 and 2015, the Pentagon abolished their restrictions on women voluntarily serving in combat roles.[1] Based on these changes, the National Coalition for Men, a non-profit men's rights organization, filed a lawsuit against the Selective Service System in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on April 4, 2013, arguing that with the Pentagon's change in female participation in combat roles, the rationale behind Rostker no longer applied, and the male-only requirement of the Selective Service System was gender-discriminatory.[2] In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of the case and remanded the case back to the district court.[3] The case was later moved to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in the 5th Circuit.[4]
In 2016 Congress created the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service and tasked it with evaluating the Selective Service System and recommending whether women should be required to register for the draft, or potentially do away with the Selective Service System to avoid the gender inequality issue. On January 23, 2019, the Commission released an interim report, which suggests numerous options including eliminating the draft, a type of universal service requiring all Americans to participate in some type of military or public service, or increasing efforts to create a volunteer force.[5] The report is due by March 2020.[6]
