On August 31, 1965, President Johnson signed a law making the burning of draft cards a federal offense subject to a five-year prison sentence and $1000 fine. In response to the law and in protest of the war in Vietnam, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States on October 15, 1965. The constitutionality of the federal law was upheld in 1968 by the US Supreme Court in US v. O'Brien.