LiveWire

Well, well. Obama’s Supreme Court pick also helped keep ROTC ban in place at Harvard, according to a new report at Free Beacon.

Merrick Garland was not eligible to be drafted into military service while he was a student at Harvard University as he took two student deferments during the Vietnam War, according to a copy of Garland’s Selective Service record obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Garland, President Obama’s pick to be put on the U.S. Supreme Court, was granted two student deferments while he was at Harvard, one on Aug. 19, 1971, and another on Dec. 10, 1971. Both were categorized as 2-S deferments which indicate that the “registrant deferred because of activity in study,” according to the record.

He received a third deferment in February 1973 noting that the he was “not currently subject to processing for induction,” as the military had transitioned into an all-volunteer force that no longer drafted men through the Selective Service.

Garland was a member of Harvard’s class of 1974, which was the last class that was eligible to receive the 2-S student deferment, according to a 1971 report in the Harvard Crimson. Freshmen in the class below Garland were designated “available for service” despite their enrollment at the university.

Though there is nothing out of the ordinary about Garland’s deferments, other students at Harvard took action to serve their country even as they pursued an education. The Harvard Crimson reported that some students took a semester off to enroll in the National Guard which would commit them to a short four-to-six-month tour of duty and continued service during summer vacations.

Other students commuted to nearby Worcester Polytechnic Institute to enroll in its Reserve Officer Training Corps program, which allowed students to stay in school until they graduated and receive military training throughout. They were forced to commute because ROTC had been banned from Harvard’s campus in 1969.

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