Will the Military Academies Comply on Admissions?

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | June 20, 2025 | J.A. Cauthen

[karpov]

After years of obfuscation and denial, the U.S. Naval Academy, in a suit brought by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), recently admitted to using an applicant’s race during the admissions process. SFFA had sought to compel the Naval Academy to apply the same non-discrimination standards that the Supreme Court required in 2023’s SFFA v. Harvard. Ultimately, Judge Richard D. Bennett ruled that “the Naval Academy’s race-conscious admissions program withstands the strict scrutiny in the ambit of the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Harvard case.”

Notably, Judge Bennett wrote that the Naval Academy’s admissions process complies with the Supreme Court’s strict-scrutiny standard because a diverse officer corps serves a compelling governmental interest and national security imperative. The academy, wrote Bennett, “has proven that this national security interest is indeed measurable and that its admissions program is narrowly tailored to meet that interest.”

Yet the Naval Academy could not cite any studies (nor has the Defense Department) showing that “racially diverse units perform quantifiably better in combat than less diverse units,” as Major Matthew H. Ormsbee argued in a recent Harvard Law Review essay. Furthermore, as Major Ormsbee demonstrates, the “Naval Academy not only sets explicit racial composition ‘goals’ for each class but also tracks compliance in what effectively operates as a quota system in camouflage.” As other writers and I have previously argued, and contra Judge Bennett, none of the Naval Academy’s actions comport with current law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard.

Not only are the Naval Academy’s arguments specious, but the admissions data, when thoroughly examined, do not support the district court’s opinion in this case. As the political scientist Zach Goldberg demonstrated in a recent essay, rigorous analysis of admissions data refutes the Naval Academy’s “claims that racial considerations are limited and non-determinative.”

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TOPICS: Education; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: racialpreferences

[SuperLuminal]

"... a diverse officer corps serves a compelling governmental interest and national security imperative."

Fracking garbage!
This fellow-traveler, and any others like him, have to go... NOW!

[airborne]

They can be as diverse as they want, so long as they don’t get special treatment for being a minority.

[Seruzawa]

I can tell you from direct experience that “diverse” units do not operate as efficiently. It’s utter new age horse manure. No one can show any evidence that “diversity” increases combat efficiency. Everyone in a combat unit has to be on the exact same page. I can guarantee that no one who is pushing this shyt has ever humped a rifle, flown a mission or piloted a gunboat.

[DesertRhino]

“The academy, wrote Bennett, “has proven that this national security interest is indeed measurable and that its admissions program is narrowly tailored to meet that interest.””

Magical thinking with no proof beyond emotion. This fills the ranks with females and others who are less competitive. Then they crash ships and depress recruiting by making the entire service less masculine.

[Da Coyote]

The toilet bowls of all the academies (toilet bowl = woke leadership) need to be flushed many times and then cleaned with disinfectants before they can be returned to professional military standards. They have only been flushed once, and rest assured that there are still turds floating in there.

[scrabblehack]

I thought they had to be appointed by their congresscritter, Senator, et al. The President gets a few appointments too, no?

[suthener]

If only people knew how much DIE goes on in the military. As I’ve said before, in the 80s it was primarily black DIE, in the 90s it was female DIE. Can you imagine being in the Navy and working for a female chief who has never actually done the job she is supervising, while literally hundreds of better qualified men who had spent their entire careers doing the job, are passed over? I’ve been there and lived with that.

[Dr. Franklin]

I did some training with a company that was run by and largely composed of former military guys. They made three teams for the training exercise. The first team was all of the white guys. The second team was all of the black guys, and the third team was all of the Hispanic guys. That way, no one could complain about racism, etc. Everything went fine.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

You get nominated by a member of Congress or the President/VP. But it is the Academies themselves that evaluate each nominee and ultimately decide which gets appointments.

There can be as many as ten nominees for each available slot.

[alternatives?]

IMO, they went downhill after weakening the physical requirements to let women in.

[MayflowerMadam]

“No one can show any evidence that ‘diversity’ increases combat efficiency.”

I’ve never been-there-done-that in a military situation. But throughout my career, when it came to teams, intra- and inter-office staffing, the more racial diversity there was, the more inefficient the operation was.

The more “equity” there was, the more INequity there was as to who shouldered most of the workload and who sloughed off.

The whole AA, PC, DEI concept created built-in weak links.

[falcon99]

We have no judicial system any more. All we have is leftist democrats in black robes.