Traditionally, only men of a certain age were required to register for selective service but, as many begin to question the constitutionality of these guidelines, Selective Service may soon extend to include women.

   According to the official Selective Service website, “…documented or undocumented immigrant men residing in the U.S. are required to be registered with Selective Service if they are at least 18 years old but are not yet 26 years old” (sss.gov).

   The website further states, “Selective Service law — as it’s written now — refers specifically to ‘male persons’ in stating who must register and who would be drafted. For women to be required to register with Selective Service, Congress would have to amend the law” (sss.gov).

   The constitutionality of excluding women in Selective Service was previously challenged by the courts: “A Supreme Court decision in 1981, Rostker v. Goldberg, held that registering only men did not violate the due process clause of the Constitution” (sss.gov).                

    According to a website reporting on the U.S. military, a Federal Judge’s decision deemed that the law that requires men, but not women, to register for the U.S. Military draft was unconstitutional (military.com).

   According to NPR, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Gray Miller declared that “…exempting women from that registration requirement violates the Constitution’s equal protection principles” (npr.org).

   The article further states, “In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Gray Miller did not tell the Selective Service System to stop requiring all 18-year-old men to register. The Houston-based judge simply rejected the arguments that the agency had made for limiting the requirement to men” (npr.org).

   “If women want equal rights just like men, then yes, they should have to sign up for the draft; because why should men have to go to war and women not?” said Senior Ernesto Dominguez.

   Junior Megan Nonato added, “If males are required to put their lives on the line or implement the years of their lives for the government, then women should too. Although people may disagree since women carry on the next generation of people, or rather because they believe they are ill-equipped for the draft, such claims can be deemed as invalid or, to such extremes, false.”

   “Also, the increase of women in the military proves the capabilities of women and the benefit of having them in the draft. Whether or not both males and females should be required to join the military is hard to answer. However, if there is a draft implemented by the government, women shouldn’t be excluded from the draft,” Nonato added.

   According to the official Selective Service website, “The last draft call was on December 7, 1972, and the authority to induct expired on June 30, 1973. The date of the last drawing for the lottery was on March 12, 1975. Registration with the Selective Service System was suspended on April 1, 1975, and registrant processing was suspended on January 27, 1976” (sss.gov). 

   “In 1940, prior to U.S. entry into World War II, the first peacetime draft in our nation’s history was enacted in response to increased world tension and the system was able to fill wartime manpower needs smoothly and rapidly after the attack on Pearl Harbor,” states the Selective Services website (sss.gov).