A federal court dismissed a lawsuit to the Naval Academy’s use of race in admissions policies, stating that the school has “established a compelling national security interest” in preserving diversity in the US military.
While the ruling issued Friday by US Senior District Judge Richard Bennett, a George W. Bush appointee, is a significant blow to the legal effort to repeal affirmative action policies at the academy, it also makes clear that decisions on such issues begin and end with the executive branch, which will soon be led by a commander in chief who is hostile to such diversity initiatives.
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee the Pentagon, has criticised the military’s diversity programs, saying on a podcast, “Woke sh*t has got to go.”
“Either you’re in for warfighting and that’s it, that’s the only litmus test we care about,” stated the president. “You’ve got to get DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and CRT (critical race theory) out of military academies so you’re not training young officers to be baptised in this type of thinking.”
In the 179-page ruling, Bennett stated: “At bottom, the Court, considering all evidence before it, finds that the military’s interest in growing and maintaining a highly qualified and diverse officer corps is informed by history and learnt experience, and that a highly qualified and diverse officer corps remains critical for military effectiveness and thus for national security.”
“Plaintiff’s suggestion to the contrary contradicts decades of broad historical and military consensus,” Bennett said, referring to the conservative group Students for Fair Admissions, which filed the complaint in federal court in Maryland.
The judge stated that he “defers to the executive branch with respect to military personnel decisions” and that under the Constitution, “‘the President of the United States, not any federal judge’ ultimately makes such decisions.”
The decision comes several months after a nine-day trial in the case, and more than a year after the US Supreme Court declared that colleges and universities may no longer use race as a specific reason for admissions, with the exception of US military service academies. That ruling was also made in lawsuits filed by Students for Fair Admissions.
In a footnote in last year’s majority ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the cases before the court did “not address the issue” and left up the prospect of “potentially distinct interests that military academies may present” in a future case.
Students for Fair Admissions quickly filed legal challenges against the Naval Academy and West Point, claiming that the schools’ policies of considering race as a consideration in admissions violated the US Constitution.
Bennett stated in his decision, citing the Roberts footnote, that the “record in this case demonstrates the wisdom of that caution.”
“Defendants have proven that the Naval Academy’s limited use of race in admissions has increased the racial diversity of the Navy and Marine Corps, which has enhanced national security by improving the Navy and Marine Corps’ unit cohesion and lethality, recruitment and retention, and domestic and international legitimacy,” the judge said.
Students for Fair Admissions stated that it will appeal the decision to the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, then, if necessary, to the Supreme Court.
“It is our hope that the United States military academies will eventually be compelled to follow the Supreme Court’s prohibition on race in college admissions,” the group’s president, Edward Blum, said in a statement.
This story has been updated with more information.