Checking Up

No card, no loan

"We feel that those who are taking the benefits should also be taking the responsibilities." That is how Joan Lamb of the Selective Service System defended an amendment to the Military Selective Service Act, passed overwhelmingly by the House last July, that requires all young men who apply for Government student loans to certify that they have registered for the draft. A federal district judge in Minnesota decided in March that this was a violation of the constitutional rights of students. But the Supreme Court last week, while not passing final judgment, ruled that the requirement should take effect for the time being.

The Supreme Court still must hear arguments, probably next fall or in early 1984, on whether the rule is constitutional. But the very fact that the Supreme Court allowed the law to stay in effect seems to suggest that the Justices see no glaring constitutional problems with tying student aid to registration.

Although the U.S. no longer has a military draft, all men are required to register on their 18th birthday. So far, 10.4 million, or 96.2% of all eligible men, have done so. But 408,000 have not. Most universities take the position that they should not be called upon to act as the arm for Uncle Sam's finger. "It isn't in keeping with our mission as an institution of higher learning," says Nancy Jessup, a financial aid officer at the University of California. They note that it unfairly singles out students who need loans, while not affecting those who pay their own way. Nonetheless, institutional resistance, now that the Supreme Court has allowed the rule to take effect, seems to be waning. "We'll go along with it, reluctantly," says Provost Nicholas Clifford of Middlebury College in Vermont.

The Justice Department meanwhile is preparing to pursue 70,000 young men, born in the years 1960-64, of those 400,000 who have not yet registered and who have ignored two letters of warning from the Selective Service System. This new approach may serve to counter arguments that the Government has been targeting only a few selected resisters. So far, just 15 people have been indicted for not registering, and eight convicted. The latest list, prepared by reviewing Social Security and drivers' license records of young men between the ages of 18 and 23, will be sent to local U.S. attorneys for action.

Opponents of registration criticized the crackdown. "There is not any public tolerance for that kind of massive opening of prosecutions," says Barry Lynn, president of Draft Action. "It's still fundamentally an effort to intimidate." But Lamb says the new steps are manifestly fair: "We owe it to the 10 million who are registered to get that pool as large as we can." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.