Clay v. United States

Impact

Relying, as it did, on a technicality established by an earlier precedent, the Court’s decision itself has had little precedential value. Even Justice Douglas’s more useful concurrence, which offered thought-provoking ideas on the true implications of religious freedom in the context of selective conscientious objection to military service, has largely been lost to time, cited only rarely and often for unrelated—or at least tangential—points. If anything, the Court’s decision in Clay may best be understood as a reflection of its Vietnam-era legacy—avoiding decisive rulings on the most divisive controversial questions and finding ways to reach what it believed to be appropriate results through other means.

Douglas’s specific argument about the First Amendment and religiously grounded selective conscientious objection was never put to the test. By the time of the Court’s decision, the U.S. government had already begun moving toward an all-volunteer army, and so the hard questions that the Court had not yet answered about the extent to which the Constitution protected religiously based selective conscientious objection remain unanswered today. And although Ali went on to complete a remarkable career that culminated with his selection by Sports Illustrated as the “sportsman of the century,” his controversial position on the war in Vietnam, and the litigation arising out of his refusal to be inducted, have remained an inescapable part of his enigmatic legacy.

In the decades since the Supreme Court decision in the case of Clay v. United States, numerous critics have analyzed Ali’s impact on American culture. In a Sports Illustrated “Flashback,” William Nack stated that “he not only came to personify the turbulent ’60s but also became one of the decade’s most hated figures.” Thirty years later, though, Ali managed to “navigat[e] the sweet land of liberty and religious freedom” and, according to Nack, was “as loved and embraced as he once was scorned and despised.” Clearly, the fighter’s antidraft stance sparked a heated debate about the depth of his patriotism, but as John C. Walter pointed out, his performance at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy, revealed not only his athletic prowess but also a deeply rooted devotion to his country: A Soviet reporter had brought up the issue of segregation in the United States, and the then-eighteen-year-old gold medalist responded, “The U.S.A. is still the best country in the world, including yours.”

Between 1967 and 1971—the years separating Ali’s conviction and his ultimate victory in the Supreme Court—U.S. support for the Vietnam War eroded. At the same time, Ali’s popularity grew. No longer dismissed as a draft evader, he came to symbolize the antiwar, pro–civil rights movement in America. He had weathered a public firestorm with unwavering courage, given up his heavyweight title and more than three years of boxing in the prime of his career, and maintained his beliefs in the process.

Ali was able to resume his boxing career at the end of 1970, when the state of Georgia, which did not have a boxing commission, allowed him to fight. His match in Atlanta against Jerry Quarry was over in the third round: “The Greatest” had returned to the ring. On March 8, 1971, three months before the Court’s final decision in Clay v. United States, Ali took on Joe Frazier in the Fight of the Century. Like Ali, Frazier—who had been named boxing’s heavyweight champion after Ali was stripped of the title—had never lost a fight. Frazier retained his title, beating Ali by a unanimous decision after fifteen grueling rounds. Ali put up such a fight that his loss in the final round was characterized as courageous, and even heroic, by the media.

In 1973 George Foreman became the world’s reigning heavyweight champion by defeating Frazier. Ali was able to regain the heavyweight title that same year, knocking out Foreman in the eighth round of their legendary fight in Zaire known as the Rumble in the Jungle. Nearly a year after defeating Foreman, Ali and Frazier met again in a stunning rematch in the Philippines. The so-called Thrilla in Manila was among the most brutal boxing matches ever fought. Ali withstood more than four hundred punishing blows from Frazier before being declared the winner in the fourteenth round.

Ali’s passion in the ring solidified his claim to the title of “the Greatest.” He retired from boxing in 1981. Three years later he went public with his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis—a direct result, doctors say, of repeated trauma to the head. The ravaging effects of the disease have taken their toll on Ali, but he has established himself as a tireless philanthropist, raising funds for a variety of charities, most notably the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at Barrow Neurological Institute. In an interesting footnote to a complex life story, Ali went to Vietnam in 1994 in a show of support for families of American soldiers still missing in action.