5 U.S.C. § 3328
Section 3328 · Selective Service registration
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case Elgin v. Department of the Treasury (2012)
Most recently applied in Morris & Dickson Co. v. Whitaker (December 2018)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) An individual—
(1) who was born after December 31, 1959, and is or was required to register under section 3 of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. 3802) and
(2) who is not so registered or knowingly and willfully did not so register before the requirement terminated or became inapplicable to the individual,
shall be ineligible for appointment to a position in an Executive agency.
(b) Subsection (a) shall not apply to an individual—
(1) who is a veteran;
(2) who provides evidence of active duty service to the Executive agency in which the individual seeks an appointment; and
(3) for whom the requirement to register under section 3 of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. 3802) has terminated or is now inapplicable due to age.
(c) The Office of Personnel Management, in consultation with the Director of the Selective Service System, shall prescribe regulations to carry out this section. Such regulations shall include provisions prescribing procedures for the adjudication of determinations of whether a failure to register was knowing and willful. Such procedures shall require that such a determination may not be made if the individual concerned shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the failure to register was neither knowing nor willful. Such procedures may provide that determinations of eligibility under the requirements of this section shall be adjudicated by the Executive agency making the appointment for which the eligibility is determined.
(d) In this section, the terms "active duty" and "veteran" have the meaning given those terms in section 101 of title 38.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Editorial Notes
Amendments
2024—Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 118–159, §1108(1), substituted "(50 U.S.C. 3802)" for "(50 U.S.C. App. 453)".
Subsecs. (b), (c). Pub. L. 118–159, §1108(2), (3), added subsec. (b) and redesignated former subsec. (b) as (c).
Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 118–159, §1108(4), added subsec. (d).
1987—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 100–180 struck out "within the Office" after "for the adjudication" in second sentence and inserted at end "Such procedures may provide that determinations of eligibility under the requirements of this section shall be adjudicated by the Executive agency making the appointment for which the eligibility is determined."