Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought the lawsuit to the Supreme Court that ended affirmative action for admissions at colleges, is now targeting West Point military academy, filing a lawsuit asserting the academy discriminates against white applicants.
The SCOTUS ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts that ended affirmative action exempted military academies; Roberts wrote a footnote that military academies had “potentially distinct interests.”
“For most of its history, West Point has evaluated cadets based on merit and achievement,” the lawsuit — filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York — notes. “For good reasons: America’s enemies do not fight differently based on the race of the commanding officer opposing them, soldiers must follow orders without regard to the skin color of those giving them, and battlefield realities apply equally to all soldiers regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
After pointing out that President Harry Truman desegregated the military, the lawsuit charges, “Over the past few decades, however, West Point has strayed from that approach. Instead of admitting future cadets based on objective metrics and leadership potential, West Point focuses on race. In fact, it openly publishes its racial composition ‘goals,’ and its director of admissions brags that race is wholly determinative for hundreds if not thousands of applicants.”
“West Point has no justification for using race-based admissions,” the lawsuit declares. “Those admissions are unconstitutional for all other public institutions of higher education.”
The lawsuit mentions two prospective candidates for West Point, both white, who joined Students for Fair Admissions in the lawsuit because they supports its mission. Both have excellent grade point averages, are in excellent physical condition, have family members who served in the military, and believe it would be an honor to serve their country.
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“Unless West Point is ordered to stop using race as a factor in admissions, his race will prevent him from competing for admission on an equal footing,” the lawsuit states of each candidate, adding that each preferred to remain pseudonymous, “because he is a high-school student, and he fears reprisal from West Point and others if his participation in this litigation becomes public.”
President Joe Biden has urged the military to continue filtering applications by race.