Stop the Draft
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Stop the Draft was a student political organization created to oppose draft legislation during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, President Carter introduced a bill in Congress for compulsory draft registration of men over eighteen years of age. The bill made it a crime to fail to register, or even to fail to keep the Selective Service informed of the potential draftee’s current address and it was widely regarded as a preliminary move by the United States government to bring back the draft. Within a week after the introduction of the bill, and as a result of it, three students, Jeffrey Herman, William Hoffman III and Robert Wells formed a University of Washington student organization called "Stop The Draft," starting the post-Vietnam anti-conscription movement. The organization was formed on the premise that conscription violated the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits involuntary servitude except for criminal convicts.
Stop The Draft quickly grew into the largest student organization at the University of Washington (Seattle), with over sixty-five active members.[citation needed] It was a true single-issue organization. The group’s ranks included members of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the Young Socialist Alliance, Students for a Libertarian Society, Young Democrats, Young Republicans and other disparate groups.[citation needed]
Stop The Draft hosted an on-campus film series of anti-war movies drawing crowds in the hundreds. It gathered signatures on its petition calling on Congress to reject the draft, draft registration, or any form of compulsory national service. The petition eventually garnered over 200,000 signatures in King County, Washington. Similar petitions in other states, largely patterned after the Stop the Stop Draft petition, garnered total signatures in the millions and hosted hundreds of demonstrations across the United States.[citation needed] Stop the Draft also held several demonstrations, one of which surrounded the Federal Building in Seattle with approximately 2,000 demonstrators.[citation needed]
During the eighteen months when Stop The Draft was most active, Congress considered eight separate bills for compulsory national service, and rejected them all. However, in 1980, Congress did re-instate the requirement that young men register with the Selective Service System. Currently, male U.S. citizens and many male aliens living in the U.S., if age 18 through 25, are required to register with the Selective Service System.
