Expand Fair Admissions to the Military Academies. The logic of SFFA v. Harvard applies to West Point and Annapolis.

In June 2023, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) prevailed in complaints alleging racially discriminatory admissions practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The 6-3 Supreme Court decision in these cases eliminated decades of ambiguity about what aspects of race were permissible in candidate evaluations at some of our nation’s most prestigious universities.

Following the Court’s decision, a number of analysts and commentators noted that Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion contained a footnote exempting military service academies. That footnote reads:

The United States as amicus curiae contends that race-based admissions programs further compelling interests at our Nation’s military academies. No military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the courts below addressed the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context. This opinion also does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.

Justice Sotomayor in dissent, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, argued that the Court’s majority did not “dispute [that] some uses of race are constitutionally permissible” and “agree[d] that a limited use of race is permissible in some college admissions programs”—notably at the nation’s military academies. However, the liberal justices’ dissent incorrectly interpreted the footnote language as explicitly approving the use of race in admissions at military academies, due to the “potentially distinct interests” associated with military and national-security requirements.

This “exemption” or “carve-out” for military academies is nothing of the sort. The Court’s majority simply explained that, because no “military academy is party to these cases,” their opinion did not address the issue. In a pending law-review article by Paul Larkin, Charles Stimson, and Thomas Spoehr, the authors write that the footnote merely articulates a point about the applicability of the majority judgment.

My son had been interested in attending AFA or West Point since he was 10 years old. But in his sophomore year in high school he tore his ACL in lacrosse.

We kept up with his goal. At first Academy Representatives said the repaired ACL injury was not disqualifying. Then as things got more involved, they said it was disqualifying.

With further investigation, a Representative said to us, in person, that it isn’t disqualifying if you are a minority, but since the pool is too large for white males, it would be disqualifying for him.

That shut things down for him in a hurry.

He is now a senior and plays hockey at a top 30 university.
And never looked back.

Hopwood v. Texas 1996. The University of Texas Austin was sued because qualified white students weren’t being admitted to the Law Dept. but unqualified blacks were.

In 2010, in a related state law, the top gpa 10% of the state’s graduating high school students had automatic admission to any public state college they wished. But, oh nooooo! UT couldn’t have that because.... get this.... the univ. president said that wouldn’t allow for him to fill the 100 player roster on the Longhorn football team. Yeah, makes no sense how out of 52,000 students, some of the incoming smart white freshmen would completely shut down football or at least cut out the black players who didn’t make top grades in high school. Anyway, it went to the legislature (I worked the legislators hard on this) and.... again, get this.... UT got a compromise that they only had to accept the top 8% of high schoolers but all other state universities still had to accept the top 10% when all this was ***solely*** UT’s fault back during Hopwood when they discriminated against qualified white students.

UT is still discriminating against white students. Despite placing 2nd and 3rd in the state at UIL two years and graduating 3rd in HS, our kid couldn’t get any scholarships but the randomly selected dorm roommate from Mexico got a full 4 year ride. UT also states in their dept. programs minorities get special perks.

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