Muhammad Ali, conscientious objection, and the Supreme Court’s struggle to understand

SCOTUSblog ^ | 6/8/2016 | Marty Lederman

[Elderberry]

You’ve probably heard that in 1971 the Supreme Court reversed Muhammad Ali’s conviction for refusing to be inducted into the Selective Service. But why did it do so? What was the legal issue on which the case turned? And what, if anything, did the criminal case have to do with Ali losing his championship and being precluded from fighting for more than three years?

Here’s a brief summary of the legal machinations. I am deeply indebted to former Georgetown Law professor Tom Krattenmaker, one of Justice John Marshall Harlan’s clerks in the October Term 1970, from whom I learned some of the information below about the Court’s internal deliberations in the Clay case. The remainder of this post is derived from the public record and from the memos available in the Blackmun and Brennan papers.

“I shook up the world!”

On February 25, 1964, just nine days after the Beatles’ second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Cassius Clay, Olympic gold medalist at the 1960 Games in Rome, won the world heavyweight boxing title by upsetting Sonny Liston in Miami Beach. Clay was twenty-two years old. Two days later, Clay announced that he was a member of the Nation of Islam, a group with which he had been worshipping since 1962. The following week, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad announced that Clay would be renamed Muhammad Ali.

Ali’s conscientious objection claim: The twists and turns of the administrative process

In February 1966, the Selective Service informed Ali that he was, for the first time, eligible for military service. Ali then applied for a conscientious objector exemption, asserting that he was a pacifist who was religiously opposed to fighting in war. His local draft board rejected the claim, and he appealed to the Kentucky State Appeal Board.

[butlerweave]

conscientious objector and his job is BEATING PEOPLE TO A PULP

[Wolfie]

He had an usual job…beating people up. The Government wanted him to change jobs, Government wanted him to kill people. He said, “No, that’s where I draw the line. I’ll beat ‘em up, but I won’t kill ‘em”. And the Government said, “Well, if you won’t kill ‘em, we won’t let you beat ‘em up”.

= George Carlin

[Jack Hammer]

No, Cassius Clay didn’t want to fight to defend the nation that bore and nourished him.

He did, however, feel good about fighting in the ring if it’d make him millions.

[cmomm44]

Man was good at what he did -—boxing—but, like all who refuse to help or fight for our Nation they make a good life on the courage of others who serve the armed forces when needed to protect all-—call it ‘no guts’, true fear or anything else I see it every day in some who are in positions of trust and so called ‘leadership’-—there have always been such cowards in the world from the beginnings of time