Anti-Affirmative Action Group Sues West Point Over Admissions Policy

[In It to Win It]

NYT Gift Link

The group that won a major Supreme Court victory against affirmative action in June sued the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, arguing that the court’s ruling barring race-conscious college admissions should extend to the nation’s military academies as well.

The group, Students for Fair Admissions, was the driving force behind the lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to strike down race-conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, a decision that has roiled admissions programs at colleges and universities across the country.

But the court specifically excluded the military academies, including West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, from its decision that affirmative action in college admissions could not be reconciled with the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees. In a footnote to the majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that the court was not ruling one way or the other on the academies, because of “the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”

That footnote created an opening for a new round of litigation, and Students for Fair Admissions took it.

“For most of its history, West Point has evaluated cadets based on merit and achievement,” the group said in its complaint, filed on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York. But that changed, the group argued, over the last few decades.

“Instead of admitting future cadets based on objective metrics and leadership potential, West Point focuses on race,” the complaint says, in accusing the academy of practices that violate the Fifth Amendment, which it says “contains an equal-protection principle that binds the federal government and is no less strict than the Equal Protection Clause that binds the states.”

Any decision in the case would probably apply to the other service academies as well.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. The SCOTUS opinion on affirmative action excluded miltiary academies

These bigots want to undo the only non-bigoted part of the SCOTUS opinion

[Irish_Dem]

2. Will the military become a utopian oasis in a dystopian country?

I know it is not all peaches and cream of course.

I grew up in a military family and understand the hardships of a military career.
Including death, disability, isolation, long absences from home, etc.

But the military is standing up for its people now.
For the men, women and children in their system.
Standing up for diversity, equal access to healthcare, etc

Offering free education, health care, retirement, etc.

The military leaders are standing up to congress, standing firm against a despicable GOP.

This is called leadership. Where the leaders understand what makes the US military the best
in the entire world: the troops, their spouses, their families. And the leadership is telling
them we have your backs.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Ed Blum is an asshole and only cares about his RWNJ positions

Link to tweet

[Irish_Dem]

4. It doesn't matter who he is. He is part of the GOP attacking US military academies.

Undermining troop readiness and damaging morale.
This is a national security issue.

[Bettie]

5. So, he has a sad that people who aren't white

and male are admitted to West Point...well, he can just fuck right off.

And yet, they are as likely as not to decide that it's cool to keep non-white/non-male people out of everything, because that's what the majority is.