Supreme Court To Review Registration

The U.S. Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will review a sexual discrimination suit filed against the Selective Service System (SSS) for its policy of registering only men for the draft.

If the Supreme Court upholds a Philadelphia federal district court ruling made last summer--that the current registration program is unconstitutional because it subverts equal protection guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment--the SSS will be forced to discontinue registration, which began in July.

Capitol Hill sources agree that supporters of registration will have a difficult time pushing a bill through Congress that would authorize funds for the registration of women as well as men. A Congressional subcommittee rejected a measure which included women earlier this year.

The Supreme Court will not hear the registration case until late winter or early spring, a Court spokesman said yesterday.

President-elect Ronald Reagan promised during the presidential campaign to eliminate President Carter's registration program. Reagan has not reiterated his vow since the election, and his advisers have refused to say whether he will support registration once he assumes office.

In another ruling, the Court yesterday refused to review a petition to block proceedings in the registration case. Filed "on behalf of the U.S. government" by Stacy Acker, a 20-year-old woman from Alabama, the petition claims the government has the authority to register only men.

Calling the failure to register women "a totally irrational distinction," Donald Weinberg, the Philadelphia attorney who will present the case against the SSS before the Supreme Court, yesterday said that his ultimate aim is not to adjust the program, but to "see that there is no registration, no draft."

Weinberg's client, Robert Goldberg, won his suit against the SSS in Philadelphia federal district court in July, but Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan stayed the decision, allowing registration of 19- and 20-year-old men to begin as planned.

The government immediately appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court and said the SSS would continue registering young men in 1981. Men born in 1962 are required to sign up beginning on January 5.

Brayton Harris, associate director of the SSS, yesterday declined to comment on the pending case.

Weinberg promised to "go with the exact same case we won with in Philadelphia." He added that he will concentrate on the "illogic of ignoring the skills and capabilities of 51 per cent of the population in the event of a national crisis." He declied to evaluate his chances of winning before the high court.

However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has acted as Weinberg's associate counsel during the case, "remains optimistic," according to David Landau '72, an ACLU attorney and associate director of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft.

Several legal experts, including Laurence H. Tribe '62, professor of Law, have said the Supreme Court will probably not overturn the Philadelphia court's ruling.

Tribe has cited two Supreme Court decisions--one dealing with dependency benefits in the armed services and another with rules discriminating against males who want to purchase liquor in Oklahoma--to illustrate the Supreme Court's "enlightened" approach to gender discrimination.

Other academics and lawyers have disagreed, saying the Court will overturn the earlier ruling. Paul A. Freund, Loeb University Professor Emeritus, has said the court has consistently upheld preferential treatment for women in the past, and might do the same in this case.

In response to a suit brought by the ACLU, a federal district court judge in Washington ruled two weeks ago that the SSS cannot force registrants to give their Social Security numbers at the time of registration.

The SSS had planned to use the numbers to identify registrants and those who failed to register.

Because of the decision--which was based on a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974--the SSS will have to delete upon request a registrant's Social Security number. Selective Service is not expected to prosecute those who refused to surrender their number last summer, when they were required by law to do so.

SSS officials have also refused to discuss their plans for identifying and prosecuting eligible men who refuse to register.

Among the plans under consideration is a cross-checking of SSS files with those of various high schools, colleges and universities, an SSS spokesman said last week.

Men who fail to register face up to five years in prision and a $10,000 fine