Men-only draft registration upheld

Reversing a district court decision, a panel of the Fifth Circuit has dismissed a constitutional challenge to men-only draft registration. The 6-page decision in National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System, No. 19-20272 (5th Cir. Aug. 13, 2020), finds that the case is controlled by the Supreme Court's decision in Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981). Excerpt:

Here, as in State Oil Co., the factual underpinning of the controlling Supreme Court decision has changed, but that does not grant a court of appeals license to disregard or overrule that precedent. See also Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 594 (2005) (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (pointing out that only the Supreme Court may overrule its precedents “even where subsequent decisions or factual developments may appear to have ‘significantly undermined’ the rationale for [the] earlier holding” and therefore the majority should have admonished the circuit court despite affirming its judgment); Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989) (“If a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”); Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237, 239 (1997) (confirming rule from Rodriguez de Quijas that lower courts may not “conclude [that] recent cases have, by implication, overruled an earlier precedent”).

Plaintiffs-Appellees point to no case in which a court of appeals has done what they ask of us, that is, to disregard a Supreme Court decision as to the constitutionality of the exact statute at issue here because some key facts implicated in the Supreme Court’s decision have changed. That we will not do.

On to the Supreme Court.