What were the common reasons for draft deferments in 1960s-1970s US?
Executive summary
The most common reasons young American men avoided induction into the Vietnam-era draft were legal deferments for education, family dependency, medical or psychological disqualification, and occupational or service exemptions; these categories were shaped and limited by shifting laws and by the discretion of local draft boards [1] [2] [3]. Reform efforts and the 1969 lottery changed timing and visibility of those deferments, but socioeconomic bias and variable board practices remained central criticisms of who was deferred and who was sent to war [4] [5].
1. Student and educational deferments dominated the picture
From the early 1960s through most of the Vietnam War, enrollment as a full‑time college student was the single clearest path to a deferment: undergraduate students were routinely postponed from induction while they remained in school, and the surge in college attendance in the late 1960s has been tied to draft‑avoidance incentives [6] [1] [7]. Lawmakers and the Selective Service repeatedly restricted graduate, occupational and indefinite student exemptions—Congress and the President sought to curtail graduate and occupational deferments in the 1967 revisions—but student status nonetheless remained a major route out of immediate liability until further reforms and the lottery altered priority rules [8] [4].
2. Dependency and family hardship deferments protected some breadwinners
Local boards could grant dependency deferments when induction would create financial hardship for a registrant’s family; classifications such as 3‑A covered those who were primary providers or had dependent children, and the interpretation of “hardship” repeatedly changed over the decade [3] [9]. Executive orders and later Nixon‑era changes narrowed automatic paternity or spousal deferrals, reflecting political pressure to reduce perceived loopholes that advantaged middle‑class registrants [2] [9].
3. Medical and psychological disqualifications (4‑F) removed many from service
A large share of eligible men avoided service because they were adjudicated unfit for military duty for physical or mental reasons and classified 4‑F; during the period nearly all non‑serving men were exempted, deferred, or disqualified for reasons that included health, criminal records, or essential jobs [2]. The boundary between genuine impairment and gaming the system was contested—popular songs and accounts of symptom‑faking show some sought to exploit weaknesses in the system—but official classification remained a routine mechanism for non‑service [10].
4. Occupational, reserve and “vital” career deferments created structural exemptions
Registrants already in uniform (active reserves) or in certain public health and essential occupations received classifications that deferred induction, and the Selective Service explicitly authorized postponements for career paths labeled vital to national security—engineering, physics and other technical fields—creating a class‑based tilt in who served in combat versus who remained in civilian or critical roles [2] [11]. The Berry Plan and related programs for doctors and other professionals attempted to channel skills to the military while allowing delayed entry or reserve commitments [2].
5. Conscientious objector and religious‑based deferments were narrow but present
Conscientious objection could yield alternative service, but during the era the only reliable basis for a CO classification was religious grounds; moral or secular objections were not sufficient until court decisions and policy changes softened that stance in the early 1970s [9]. Divinity students retained special classifications (2‑D/2‑D‑S) for ministry preparation, another religiously inflected path to deferment [4].
6. The system’s reforms, lotteries and uneven local boards changed who was deferred
The 1969 lottery and 1971 reforms altered timing and tightened many deferment rules—ending indefinite student exemptions, limiting the age and duration of deferments, and tightening dependency standards—but local board discretion, state quotas and administrative variation meant outcomes depended heavily on where a registrant lived and the disposition of local boards, a fact that fueled perceptions of unfairness and political mobilization against the draft [4] [5] [12]. Criminal prosecution for noncompliance existed on paper but was selectively enforced by the 1970s as the Justice Department became overwhelmed by cases [9].
The historical record shows a system built of formal categories—education, dependency, medical, occupational, religious—but animated by shifting law, local discretion and socioeconomic inequality; those realities explain why deferred status often tracked class and access to institutions like college rather than an abstract principle of equal burden [1] [13] [5].