From 1941 to 1973, with a brief interruption in the late 1940s, young men aged 18 were required by law to register with their local design committees. Each was ranked according to their ability to serve and issued a design card with their name, age, and conscription status noted. The Supreme Court`s finding has been criticized by legal observers such as Dean Alfange Jr. for its „surprisingly carefree“ treatment. [29] Many saw O`Brien`s act as a clear element of communication with „the intention to convey a certain message,“ an intention to which the court did not attach much weight. [30] Instead, the court found that the government`s interest in „ensuring the continued availability of issued selective service certificates“ was higher. [30] On the 15th. In April 1967, in Sheep Meadow, Central Park, New York, about 60 young men, including students from Cornell University, gathered to burn their design cards in a can of Maxwell House coffee. [36] Surrounded by their friends who combined weapons to protect them, the men began to burn their cards. Others rushed to them and held their burning cards in the air.
This has been observed by police officers, FBI men, news film cameramen, journalists, photographers and passers-by. The uniformed reservist of the Green Beret Army, Gary Rader, went to the center and burned his conscription card. [37] The 23-year-old was arrested a few days later by FBI agents at his home in Evanston, Illinois. [38] Time Magazine estimated the total at 75 cards; [38] Participant Martin Jezer wrote that a total of about 158 cards were burned. [39] The future leader of the International Youth Party, Hoffman, was present. [35] Reports of this large demonstration were discussed by leaders of the Spring Mobilization Conference, a march of 150,000 people led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Benjamin Spock of Sheep Meadow. [36] The May Conference evolved into the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, known as The Mobe. In January 1968, Spock was accused of aiding and abetting the escape from conscription with the Boston 5. [40] He was convicted on July 10, 1968.
[41] The charges were dismissed on appeal in July 1969. [27] Conscription operations took place relatively well before and during the Second World War and again during the Korean War and the 1950s. In the mid-1960s, as the United States enlisted more troops for the Vietnam War and opposition to the war grew, some men saw the public destruction of their conscription cards as an effective form of symbolic protest against the war and the conscription system that supported it. In 1996, future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pointed out that the O`Brien court did not seem to be concerned about whether the law, in its promulgated or enforced form, „corresponded to or even resembled“ the government`s claimed interest in ending resistance protests. [33] Kagan noted that the law prohibiting the destruction of the draft map „disturbed“ only one point of view: that of the anti-war protester. It allowed how a successful challenge for O`Brien could arise by focusing on such distorted constraints. [33] At the University of California, Berkeley, on May 5, 1965, 40 men burned their drawing cards in the middle of a protest march of several hundred people carrying a black coffin at the Berkeley Draft Board. [27] One of them told reporters that the act was symbolic – he said, „We can get new cards if we ask for them.“ [7] On May 22, 1965, the Berkeley Draft Board was revisited, with 19 men burning their cards. President Lyndon B.
Johnson was hung like a portrait. [27] O`Brien argued that the four words („knowingly destroyed, knowingly mutilated“) added to the draft Maps Act were unconstitutional, that they constituted a restriction on freedom of expression. He argued that the amendment did not serve a valid purpose because the Selective Service Act already required journalists to carry their cards with their individuals at all times, so any form of destruction was already a violation. [10] He explained that he publicly burned the design card as a form of symbolic discourse to convince others to oppose the war,“ „so that other people would reassess their positions with selective service, with the armed forces, and reassess their place in today`s culture, hopefully reconsider my position.“ [10] On January 24, 1968, the Supreme Court found that the 1965 amendment, as it came into force and applied, was constitutional and did not distinguish between public or private destruction or mutilation of the draft map. [27] They found that burning a drawing card was not necessarily expressive. Chief Justice Earl Warren said: „We cannot accept the idea that a seemingly unlimited variety of behaviours can be called `speech` if the person involved in the behaviour intends to express an idea.“ [22] O`Brien`s previous six-year sentence was upheld. [28] This was an act of solidarity with Catholic pacifist David Miller, who became the first American war protester to publicly burn his draft card on October 15, 1965, in direct violation of a recently passed federal law prohibiting such acts. FBI agents later arrested Miller; He was tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. Anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman burned her design card privately in the spring of 1967.
Hoffman`s card classified it as 4F due to bronchial asthma – unfit for service. His act was purely symbolic; He would never be drafted. However, Hoffman supported the registrants who burned their cards. [35] Many in America were not satisfied with the design card burners or frequent media portrayal.