Word: defer
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Hardly had Selective Service brought out its new scheme to defer bright college students (TIME, April 9) when everybody began talking at once. In all the din, it was hard to find anyone who was really for the idea. Presidents of the Ivy League's Big Three all declared against it: Harvard's Conant called it undemocratic; Princeton's Dodds said it was wrong for the nation; Yale's Griswold, less opposed to it, feared that all the hubbub would fan "anti-intellectualism...
Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey still insisted that the plan was flexible and fair, but quickly added that draft boards had only been told that they may defer bright collegemen; not that they shall. All was confusion again. The new plan provoked cries of favoritism, questions on whether aptitude tests are a proper basis for deferment, and a spate of radio comedians' gags. The outcry sounded as if Selective Service was planning to exempt college students, not merely defer them...
...same time, the Chief Clerk of the Committee told the CRIMSON that the group had yesterday accepted in principle an amendment to keep the deferment test from being mandatory on local boards. The clause will merely say that local boards do not have to defer on the basis of grades made on the test; it will not affect the other sections of the recent presidential order which gave blanket deferment to all graduate students in all fields and to students who maintained a certain standing in their class...
...executive order released by President Truman on March 31, would defer students on the basis of a test or their standing in class...
That is, the President can only recommend and advise local boards to defer men along these lines. He cannot force them to comply. Thus, some draft boards have refused to grant 2-A classification deferments although the President specifically allowed them to take such action as regards men in the top half of their class...