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Suit Challenges Selective Service Handling of Conscientious Objectors

By Howard M. Friedman

Twenty-one year old Tobin D. Jacobrown, a Quaker, yesterday filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, DC, challenging the Selective Service System's refusal to include space to register as a conscientious objector on current selective service forms. The Washington Post reports that forms used to collect information on potential draftees in case a draft is ever re-instituted do not allow for a CO claim. Instead, Selective Service instructions allow the individual to claim the status only if a draft is re-instituted. Jacobrown is unwilling to follow the lead of some others and merely write in his CO claim on the current registration card, since the claim is never recorded by the government. Instead he has refused to register entirely. His lawsuit claims that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires the government to find a way to keep track of conscientious objectors who file.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on July 30, 2009 (boomark / email).