Who Are the Students for Fair Admissions?

My VIPs for this week are the Students for Fair Admission. This group successfully sued Harvard and University of North Carolina. The “U.S. Supreme Court held that the use of race in admissions by private and public universities violates the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment.” 

A few weeks ago, the group sued the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and is now suing the U.S. Naval Academy, “claiming the academy’s race-based admissions practices are unconstitutional.” Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, explained as follows:

Both suits against the two premier military academies (Is the Air Force Academy next?) assert that West Point and the Naval Academy cannot justify using race in admissions for the same reasons that the Supreme Court found the discriminatory policies of Harvard and UNC unconstitutional.

As a soon-to-be published law review article by my colleagues at The Heritage Foundation concludes, Student for Fair Admissions is correct….

The service academies are the nation’s premier military officer-training institutions, even though they only produce 17% of the officers in all the services. More than 80% of Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and Space Force officers get their commissions from Reserve Officer Training Corps programs or other direct commission programs.

But there is something special about being a graduate of one of the service academies. Regardless of how an officer received his or her commission, once he or she is on active duty and leading enlisted men and women, no one cares how those officers got their commissions. 

The suit against the Naval Academy acknowledges that the academy has produced “some of our nation’s most revered admirals,” but lambastes the academy for now abandoning evaluations of potential midshipmen based on merit and achievement in favor of race….

The lawsuit, Students for Fair Admissions v. U.S. Naval Academy, was filed Thursday in federal court in Maryland. It makes many of the very same allegations contained in the lawsuit that the group filed against West Point, and it is similarly making its claims under the Fifth Amendment’s equal-protection requirement that applies to the federal government—including the military, the group says.

While the Army and Navy are great rivals when it comes to football, they are not when it comes to their discriminatory admissions. They are, according to Students for Fair Admissions, violating the law with the same arrogant assumption that they are immune from the equal-protection requirements of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

Von Spakovsky explained that both West Point and the Naval Academy use a “two-step admissions policy.” The first step is a requirement for applicants to pass “a medical and physical fitness test” and to obtain a nomination from appropriate people. The second step is the appointment – and the place where race becomes a factor in any decisions about admission.

Race is not used as a quota – according to the academies – but is “holistic” – “the modern code word used by academics to engage in the type of discriminatory conduct pioneered by the president of Harvard University in the 1920s.” The said “president” did not “like the fact that so many highly qualified Jewish students were getting into the college.” Therefore, he changed the rules to add “the type of subjective individualized ‘character’ and ‘fitness’ reviews – aka a ‘holistic’ review – that would allow admissions officers to keep out Jews, no matter how qualified they were.”

The Students for Fair Admissions claims that “the Naval Academy is doing [the same thing] with its ‘holistic’ approach.” The chief of naval operations created a diversity task force, which “recommended deemphasizing the use of standardized academic test results and prioritizing ‘subjective’ factors instead.” The change was “intended to improve ‘minority representation’ and ensure the officer corps reflects ‘relevant national demographic percentages.’” Von Spakovsky continued in his explained as follows:

In other words, subjective racial quotas are used at the academy to ensure that the percentage of cadets match the racial proportions of the general population, although now the emphasis is on making the officer corps “mirror the demographic composition of the troops [sailors] they lead.” 

A Naval Academy professor involved in the admission process admitted that if an applicant identifies himself as a racial minority—other than Asian—the requirements for admission are immediately dropped. In fact, a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office notes that “the Academy makes offers of appointment to the majority of qualified minorities to achieve the Chief of Naval Operations’ commission goals for minorities.”

Goals equals quotas.

The Naval Academy claims that the naval units are more effective because race is considered for admission, but it gives no evidence to support the claim. The Students for Fair Admissions claim that there is no such evidence.

In addition, the Naval Academy thinks that Americans want an officer corps that “mirror the racial makeup of the general population.” I do not speak for all Americans, but I want the best qualified military possible, regardless of race, ethnics, or religion. All I require is that each applicant love America and swear an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and all Americans.