US Supreme Court won't halt West Point from considering race in
admissions
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[February 03, 2024]
By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to block
the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the prestigious Army school,
from considering race as a factor in admissions decisions while a legal
battle over the practice proceeds in lower courts.
The justices denied a request from Students for Fair Admissions, a group
founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum, after lower courts
refused to halt the practice. The group was behind a successful Supreme
Court challenge to race-conscious collegiate admissions policies in
cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
No justice publicly dissented from the court's brief order.
"The record before this court is underdeveloped, and this order should
not be construed as expressing any view on the merits of the
constitutional question," the decision stated.
The lawsuit said West Point's admissions practices discriminated against
white applicants and violated the U.S. Constitution's principle of equal
protection.
West Point, located in New York state, educates cadets for commissioning
into the U.S. Army, counting among its graduates former U.S. Presidents
Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses Grant and current Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin.
Students for Fair Admissions, a Virginia-based nonprofit, had asked the
Supreme Court to decide the request by the academy's application
deadline for the class of 2028, which was on Wednesday.
The U.S. Justice Department told the Supreme court in a filing that it
strengthens U.S. national security to have a more diverse corps of
officers, many of whom begin their Army careers at West Point. West
Point graduates comprise roughly one in five Army officers, one in three
generals and nearly half of current four-star generals, the department
said.
'MORE LEGITIMATE'
"Diversity, including racial and ethnic diversity, makes a more
effective fighting force - more cohesive and lethal, better able to
attract and retain top talent, and more legitimate in the eyes of the
nation and the world," the department said in its brief.
Many U.S. colleges and universities, including the nation's military
service academies, used affirmative action policies that considered race
as one of numerous factors in admissions to increase their enrollment of
Black, Hispanic and certain other minority students.
"It is disappointing that the young men and women who apply to West
Point for the foreseeable future will have their race used as a factor
to admit or reject them," Blum, who for years has pursued lawsuits
challenging affirmative action policies, said of Friday's decision.
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Cadets salute while U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrives to
attend the 2023 graduation ceremony at the United States Military
Academy (USMA), at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York, U.S., May
27, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
West Point and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
U.S. District Judge Philip Halpern in White Plains, New York,
rejected a request by Blum's group for a preliminary injunction on
Jan. 3 and rebuffed its request for an emergency injunction the next
day. The group appealed Halpern's decisions to the New York-based
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied the group's
emergency request on Monday.
The merits of the case are still being contested before Halpern, who
has issued a preliminary finding in favor of West Point but not a
final decision.
Blum's group sued last September, challenging West Point's
admissions process on behalf of two Students for Fair Admissions
members - a high school student applying for the first time and a
first-year college student applying for the second time. Both of the
male students, whose names were withheld due to what they said was a
fear of reprisal by West Point, "are fully qualified but white," the
group said.
In invalidating admissions policies at Harvard and UNC last year as
a violation of the Constitution's equal protection protections, the
Supreme Court did not address race in admissions at military
academies.
President Joe Biden's administration, in defending the
race-conscious admissions policies used by the military service
academies, said that senior military leaders long have recognized
that a scarcity of minority officers can create distrust within the
armed forces.
"The Army learned that lesson the hard way when decades of
unaddressed racial tension and disparities fundamentally threatened
the military's ability to protect national security during the
Vietnam (war) era," the Justice Department wrote in its brief,
noting that the Army was "plagued by accusations that white officers
were using minority servicemembers as 'cannon fodder.'"
The other military service academies are: the Naval Academy in
Maryland, the Air Force Academy in Colorado, the Coast Guard Academy
in Connecticut and the Merchant Marine Academy in New York.
Students for Fair Admissions has also sued the Naval Academy over
its race-conscious admissions policy. A federal judge in Maryland
has scheduled the case to go trial in September.
(Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington and Andrew Chung in New
York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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