Teen Girl Sues So She Can Legally Sign Up for the Draft

Esther Crain
·Writer
Updated
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Liz Kyle-LaBell, 17, wants women to be allowed to sign up for the draft at age 18, just as men are required to do. (Photo: Elizabeth Kyle-LaBell)

Women have long been welcome to join all branches of the military, and since the ban on combat was lifted in 2013, they’ve been able to fight in battle for their country as well.

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But only men are required to register for the draft through the Selective Service System, which they must do after they turn 18, even though the U.S. hasn’t had a draft since 1973.

So when Elizabeth Kyle-LaBell, a recent high school grad from New Jersey who is contemplating becoming a military veterinarian, tried to register on the Selective Service’s website, she was barred from doing so as soon as she checked the box indicating her sex.

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth, who goes by Liz, says that’s discrimination. “I hadn’t even entered my age yet when the website directed me to a page saying I couldn’t register,” Kyle-LaBell tells Yahoo Parenting. “I feel that if a woman wants to register for the draft, she should be able to.”

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To overturn what she describes as a policy that violates women’s civil rights, Kyle-LaBell and her mom, Allison Kyle, filed a class-action lawsuit against the Selective Service System. As a minor, Kyle-LaBell wasn’t able to file it herself, so her mother filed on her behalf, she says.

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Allison Kyle filed the lawsuit on her daughter’s behalf because Liz is still a minor. (Photo: Elizabeth Kyle-LaBell)

“With both males and females available for such roles today, the two sexes are now similarly situated for draft registration purposes, and there is no legitimate reason for the government to discriminate against the female class, so equal protection applies,” the complaint, which identifies Kyle-LaBell by her initials, E.K.L., states.

“Further, with both males and females available for such combat roles, there is no reasonable basis for infringing the associational interests of the female class by preventing them from registering.”

The suit aims to overturn a 1981 Supreme Court decision that upheld the men-only draft registration rule. “The court decided that the draft is there to create a pool of people who can be in combat, and since women were barred from combat, it wasn’t discrimination to bar them from the draft,” Roy Den Hollander, Kyle-LaBell’s attorney, tells Yahoo Parenting. “Now women are allowed to be in combat, but they still can’t register.”

While he can’t comment on the pending lawsuit, Pat Schuback, public affairs specialist for the Selective Service System, tells Yahoo Parenting that his agency isn’t opposed to allowing women to sign up. “We’re not opposed to women registering; we just follow the law.”

Since the suit was just filed and no court date has been set, Kyle-LaBell is spending her summer like other new high school grads, scoring support for her bold move from her friends and preparing for her freshman year of college at Moravian College in Pennsylvania.

Her goal is to make the draft gender-neutral: either both men and women should be required to register or it should be voluntary for both sexes. “If women are allowed to fight in a war, we should be allowed to sign up for the draft,” she says.

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