Jordana Boxer Studies Selective Service & Men’s Rights

Jordana Boxer is one of Huntington High School’s most spectacular students. She’s fully embraced life at the high school and is involved in many activities, always making an indelible mark. The junior recently won an award in this year’s National History Day contest for her website on “The Selective Service Cases: Does the Responsibility to Register for Military Service Violate Men’s Rights?”

Ms. Boxer’s website is focused around the following thesis: “American citizenship grants the individual with certain rights signed into law through the Constitution. The Selective Service Act prioritizes the responsibility to defend the U.S. during a time of war. From 1917 through today the U.S. struggles balancing honoring the rights of the individual with their responsibility  to the country’s well-being.”

The Selective Service System is an independent federal agency. “We are part of America’s National Defense Strategy, fostering deterrence through innovation and supporting the Department of Defense’s priority to maintain a formidable end-strength that provides America’s all-volunteer force with the overmatch necessary to deter, compete and win in the future.”

The 2025 National History Day theme is “Rights & Responsibilities in History.” Ms. Boxer vied in the individual website category.

“When I first heard this year's National History Day theme my brain began going in a hundred different directions about what I wanted to do for my project,” Ms. Boxer wrote in a process paper posted on the website she created. “This is my sixth year doing National History Day and my goal going into this project was to focus on a new aspect of history. Knowing that I wanted to learn about something new, I chose to focus on military history since I found it interesting and had never done it for a previous NHD project. I began looking at significant court cases related to the military, and the Selective Service Court Cases caught my eye. I have always believed that a citizen has a responsibility to serve their country in some way during their lifetime. When I saw how this case puts individual rights and a national responsibility in debate with each other I knew that would be my project.”

The thoughtful and articulate teenager is very highly regarded by her teachers and classmates. The website she created totals 1,080 words. The multimedia imbedded into the website runs 1:29.

“When I started my research I tried to find some secondary sources which would be able to establish a stronger idea of what the Selective Service Cases were,” Ms. Boxer said. “From there I looked for primary sources and read through the court case to ensure I understood all aspects of this argument. When I started putting my website together, I found all the little bits of information I was missing and filled in those gaps.”

Men between the ages of 18-15 are required by law to register with the Selective Service. In 2023, the registration rate was 84 percent. More than 15 million men are currently registered.

“When I started creating my project I focused on the Selective Service Act and the historical context leading up to the Selective Service court cases,” Ms. Boxer said. “Doing this enabled me to ensure that what I was writing for my main event was correct based on the historical context I had already written. From these I wrote about the court case and then the impact of the court case. I did the impact last since I wanted to make sure it built directly upon the points I stated in my central argument.”

Ms. Boxer devoted many hours to developing her website. “My project’s historical argument is that following the U.S. instituting of the Selective Service Act struggles arose between the rights given to individuals and the responsibility these individuals had to the U.S.,” she said. “The Selective Service Cases changed how drafts were viewed and dealt with in other American wars.”

Contest judges were impressed with the junior’s work. “My topic is significant in history because it allowed for all other U.S. drafts to occur,” Mr. Boxer said. “My topic also set the stage for not only draft resistance during World War I, but also the draft resistance within the U.S. that occurred following the institution of other drafts such as that during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.”