Project 2025, a conservative coalition’s proposal for a future U.S. Republican presidency, recommends instituting a military draft for all public school seniors, requiring them to serve in the armed forces for a minimum of two years.
In late September 2024, a rumor circulated on social media about Project 2025, a conservative coalition’s proposal for a future U.S. Republican presidency, supposedly instituting a military draft for public school seniors.
According to the rumor — which spread across platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — Project 2025 not only recommends the draft but also requires the students to serve in the armed forces for a minimum of two years. Per the posts, the alleged draft would not apply to private school students.
An X post read (archived), for example:
ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION, YET?!
Project 2025: opens up ‘the draft’ to all public school seniors for a 2 year commitment…
Private school kids are exempted.
Gee, I wonder why?!
PASS. IT. ON.
Several Facebook posts also made the claim, and at least one TikTok video referenced it, with someone asserting: “If you go to public school, when you turn 18 you are automatically enlisted in the military. But if you are in private Christian school you get to opt out.”
The claim, however, is false. Project 2025, which is a wide-sweeping effort by The Heritage Foundation that centers on a roughly 1,000-page document, does not propose instituting a military draft for all public school seniors, nor does it require a two-year military commitment from those students.
A search of Project 2025’s document for terms such as “2 year(s)” or “two year(s)” yielded no results to support the claim. The document mentions a military draft once (on page 109), though that reference is not regarding a proposed future draft. Rather, that passage references the past — when former U.S. President Richard Nixon signed legislation to end the draft — reading: “The Army no longer reflects national demographics to the degree that it did before 1974, when the draft was eliminated.”
Ellen Keenan, senior communications manager at The Heritage Foundation, wrote via email the claim “is entirely false and ridiculous.” The email continued: “We do not call for the reinstatement of the draft anywhere in Project 2025.”
The false rumor seemingly stemmed from a different proposal within the document about military recruitment, not conscription. That passage proposes requirements for all students in federally funded public high schools to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), the military’s entrance exam. The recommendation reads: “Improve military recruiters’ access to secondary schools and require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) — the military entrance examination — by all students in schools that receive federal funding.”
Project 2025 leaders are hoping to implement their proposals as early as November 2024, if voters choose Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election. Trump has attempted to distance himself from the initiative, and the extent to which his campaign and Project 2025 leaders are working together is unclear.