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Military lawyers contend racial diversity is needed for ‘national security’

A civil liberties organization is continuing its fight in court to end race-based admissions policies at U.S. military academies.

Right now, Students for Fair Admissions is appealing to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case challenging racial considerations in admissions at the U.S. Naval Academy, president Edward Blum told The College Fix in an email this week. He said arguments have not been scheduled yet.

The organization filed a similar lawsuit in December, challenging race-based admissions at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Additionally, a third lawsuit is challenging the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s admissions policies.

In the Naval Academy case, Students for Fair Admissions is appealing a federal judge’s December ruling that determined the military had “established a compelling national security interest in a diverse officer corps,” the Navy Times reported.

“Specifically, the Academy has tied its use of race to the realization of an officer corps that represents the country it protects and the people it leads,” the judge wrote. “The Academy has proven that this national security interest is indeed measurable and that its admissions program is narrowly tailored to meet that interest.”

But Students for Fair Admissions argues the U.S. Supreme Court wrongly carved out an exemption for military academies in its 2023 affirmative action ruling against Harvard University.

Blum declined to comment further, noting that he is a litigant in the case, but provided their “finding of fact” brief to The Fix detailing their arguments against the Naval Academy.

In the brief, Students for Fair Admissions argues that racial diversity does not affect military strength, and current admissions practices violate the Fifth Amendment.

In a section titled “The Effect of the Academy’s use of Racial Admissions,” the organization cited research by Duke University Professor Peter Arcidiacono showing that “race plays a significant role throughout [the Naval Academy’s] various admissions channels.”

Arcidiacono “conducted extensive statistical analysis of the Academy’s admissions data, employing techniques that have been endorsed by peer-reviewed economics journals for analyzing race in admissions decisions,” the brief states.

He found “the Academy affords ‘large racial preferences, especially for Black applicants, over all other applicants, but then for Hispanic and Asian applicants over White applicants,’” according to the brief.

MORE: Naval Academy can consider race in admissions: judge

Additionally, he found that “the average SAT scores for admitted black and Hispanic applicants, for example, are nearly tied or are lower than the average SAT scores for rejected white applicants …” it continues.

In another section, the brief argues the Naval Academy “has numerous workable alternatives to racial preferences to achieve diversity in the Brigade of Midshipmen. The Academy can maintain racial diversity and increase diversity more broadly by, among other things, increasing socioeconomic preferences.”

The academy claims its racial admissions policies are important for “national security” reasons, but its “officials have no idea what would happen if they eliminated racial preferences,” the brief argues.

The media relations office for the U.S. Naval Academy initially responded to a follow up request for comment Wednesday from The Fix, stating it “hope[d] to have a response” by the end of the day. However, the office did not respond with answers to The Fix‘s questions about the lawsuit and race based admissions.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is taking measures to end military academies’ racial admissions practices.

A memo released Wednesday from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directs the U.S. Department of Defense to “prohibit ‘sex-based, race-based or ethnicity-based’ goals for academic admissions at the three military colleges under its purview,” Higher Ed Dive reports.

Donald Critchlow, the director of the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University, has done research on the purported “effectiveness” of DEI policies in college admissions.

“As for DEI in the Military Service Academies, the report by the Center of American Institutions in its National Commission Report on Civic Education in the Military, we report extensively on DEI at West Point, Naval Academy, Airforce Academy,” Critchlow told The Fix in a recent email.

“What we learned was pretty shocking,” he said.

The report found critical race theory — the “assumption that no matter what progress is made on ensuring equal rights for minorities, ‘white privilege’ and ‘sub-conscious’ racism continues to prevail among whites” — is “promoted” throughout the military, including its service academies.

Critchlow and his colleagues wrote, “Rather than emphasizing that the strength of our military is the product of its unity and dedication to the American ideals of individual liberty and freedom, it instead asserted that diversity (our differences) are our strength.”

He told The Fix: “If diversity means ‘intellectual’ diversity I have seen positive effects in the past. Today, I see pronounced opposition to intellectual diversity. As for gender, racial, and ethnic diversity, in college admissions and faculty hires, the results have been mixed.”

For example, at Arizona State, Critchlow said “nearly 26 percent are Hispanic, many are first generation college students. Most of these students receive financial aid and do not need preferential admission policies.”

“I think that affirmative admissions policies at other universities have been a kind of zero sum game. Every student admitted through affirmative action means the exclusion of another student, even if the student is Asian or white from a lower income level,” he told The Fix.

In a separate but related case, Students for Fair Admissions also is challenging race-based admissions at West Point. The Supreme Court refused to temporarily block the policy in January 2024, and the lawsuit is now awaiting action in the lower courts, according to SCOTUS Blog.

MORE: Group that killed affirmative action sues West Point for ‘racial balancing’

IMAGE: United States Naval Academy/Facebook

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