In 1966, at the height of the draft for induction to fight in the Vietnam War, Muhammad Ali applied for an exemption as a conscientious objector because of his beliefs as a Muslim. More specifically, he claimed to be sincerely and conscientiously opposed to war based on his religious training and belief. Preliminarily, there are at least two extremely ironic aspects of this claim. First, he was obviously and notoriously a professional fighter; literally a “warrior” in the ring. Second, he testified before the administrative hearing officer that he would fight in an Islamic war; but he explicitly refused to fight in the Vietnam War because it was not a “holy war.” In fact, his actual description of the reasons for his refusal was quite “anti-American” in many ways.

The underlying administrative hearing and appeal process is itself an interesting and amusing study. The Department of Justice hearing officer, after conducting a very extensive hearing, granted his objection. But nevertheless, the Department of Justice issued a “letter” overruling the officer and advised “it finds that the registrant’s conscientious-objector claim is not sustained and recommends to your Board that he be not [so] classified.” Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698, 702, 91 S. Ct. 2068, 2071 (1971). When Ali persisted in his refusal to be inducted, he was arrested, prosecuted and convicted. Following an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, his conviction was eventually affirmed.

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