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A go-to civilian-military relations talking point is that the military was one of the first branches of government to diversify its ranks. Was there still rampant discrimination after racial incorporation? God, yes. That badness sprung the military to also be one of the earliest benefactors of affirmative action. Those benefits, while not entirely specified in the SFFA v. Harvard opinion, were enough to spare military academies from the force of a newly colorblind 14th Amendment. Now, the last bastion for affirmative action in higher education has been targeted by Blum & the Gang. From Reuters:
[Students for Fair Admissions] on Friday asked the Supreme Court to block the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from considering race as a factor in admissions decisions while a dispute over the practice proceeds in a lower court…The U.S. Justice Department in court filings has said that West Point is a “vital pipeline to the officer corps” and that its race-conscious admissions practices help the Army achieve its “mission critical” goal of having officers as diverse as its enlisted military personnel.
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President Joe Biden’s administration, in defending the race-conscious admissions policies used by the U.S. military academies, said that senior military leaders long have recognized that a scarcity of minority officers can create distrust within the armed forces.
I’ve got two words for Blum: Good luck. Does it follow that affirmative action programs should be disbanded at West Point following the SFFA v. Harvard rationale? Probably. But if the annual government budget is a good indicator, America cares a hell of a lot about its military and the stratagems deployed to maintain the war machine. Perkins Coie and Morrison Foerster may have stepped down from defending affirmative action, but it is much harder to imagine a bigger gun-toting defender of diversity, even for solely strategic reasons, than Uncle Sam. To use a bit of military jargon, there would be a bunch of blowback if the Court forces Uncle Sam to stop actively pulling from historically disenfranchised populations. It’s kind of been the military’s thing for a while now — first to desegregate, remember? And they’ve maintained that tradition by actively recruiting from minority communities. Remember when Wisconsin blamed Biden’s Pell Grant forgiveness for helping the Blacks out too much? You know who else has been disproportionately targeting minorities by offering to pay off some of their student loans? That’s right, the military! And before you try and paint this as some liberal undermining the honor of defending liberty, paying off student loan debt has been an out and public recruiting strategy:
Jim Banks’s opinions not enough to represent the military broadly? How’s about Pentagon data?
A 2020 youth poll conducted by the Pentagon found that 52% of respondents said they would consider joining the military to pay for their future education… Military service also counts toward the Public Student Loan Forgiveness plan.
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A 2015 Education Week report found that recruiters were 10 times more likely to visit a high school in Connecticut where nearly half the students were on free or reduced lunches than they were to visit a similar-size high school in the area where only 5% of students qualified for the assistance.
For context, there’s a hefty overlap of families that qualified for free or reduced lunch and families that would qualify for Pell Grants. And these lawsuits aren’t just looking at policies with explicit mentions of race in them, Blum and his ilk will go to court over proxies for diversity too.
What’s the use of fighting some war you don’t believe in overseas to come back and find that the administration of the school you wanted to go to is hesitant about accepting you for fear that you’ll trigger a Blum crony alleging a 14th Amendment violation? A million Black vets already got excluded from GI bill benefits in the past, upending affirmative action for the military won’t make it any better for minority GIs to come.
If there was any institution to trust with the last stand for affirmative action, it would be West Point. If they fall, prepare for the blinding whiteness that “colorblindness” brings.
US Supreme Court Is Asked To Stop West Point From Considering Race In Admissions [Reuters]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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