In the case Rostker v. Goldberg of 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that since women were restricted from serving in combat roles, they should be excluded from the draft as well. This ruling upheld decisions made by Congress that assumed the draft was used mainly for combat positions.
However, in 2013, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that all combat positions would be opened to women by 2016. This was reaffirmed in 2015 by current Secretary of Defense Ash Carter who announced that women could start applying for these roles starting on Jan. 1, 2016.
Earlier this month, the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said that since women are no longer barred from serving in combat, they should be required to register for the draft. Many Republican presidential candidates have also spoken up about this topic after a recent GOP debate on Feb. 6 in New Hampshire.
Under the status quo, men aged 18-25 are required to register for conscription into the Selective Service, or the draft. Assistant professor of history Dr. Shawn Fisher said that the draft was used in the Civil War, both World Wars and the Vietnam War, but since 1973, the military has moved to an all-volunteer force and the current draft is reserved only for extreme circumstances.
“Our Selective Service as we know it now is really an emergency standby force,” Fisher said. “We won’t probably call the draft in the foreseeable future, so whatever our concern is, it’s somewhat limited by the limited wars we’ve been in since then. No one imagines that we’re going to go back to a large-scale, conventional war any time soon. This is probably a non-issue at this point.”
According to Fisher, even if the draft was needed in the case of an emergency, those drafted would be used in roles of combat.
“A lot of our jobs in the military now are very technical,” Fisher said. “They require many, many months of training. In some cases, they require two or three years of training. They are not the sort of jobs that you would draft people to do. If we have a draft, they’re going to be mostly combat jobs that only require a few weeks of training. The draft is probably not functionally possible in the time that we would go to war, plan for a war and execute a war.”
Sophomore Suzanne Dawsey said that women should not be required to participate in the draft because it is not a woman’s role to serve in combat.
“Women are strong and powerful like men, yes, but they are strong in a separate way,” Dawsey said. “The Bible stories of women speak of generosity and kindness and strength of the mind and beauty. God is aware that we cannot stay out of war, but he never encourages the women to participate. He urges the women to take care of the families and to use their strength and abilities at home and in the workplace, not in a war.”
According to senior Cana Moore, however, gender equality is important to consider within a military setting.
“I think that realistically, as far as national policy is concerned, it is unfair to seek gender equality in other ways and leave out the draft,” Moore said. “I think that since the draft is hypothetical in action, at least at this point, that it is reasonable to include women in the draft. Although many women would not be well-suited in battle, I think the same holds for many men, though their societal expectation is different.”
The implementation of women in the draft would require legislative approval by Congress, according to CNN. In an interview with CNN, Army Acting Secretary Patrick Murphy encouraged “the legislative body to look at” the issue.
