Anti-Affirmative Action Group Sues West Point

Facts

• Virginia-based Students for Fair Admissions on Tuesday filed a suit against the US Military Academy at West Point, accusing the Army’s school of discriminating against white applicants.¹
• The anti-affirmative action group claims West Point has been setting quotas for the number of Black, Hispanic, and Asian cadets it accepts to each class, thereby violating the Fifth Amendment’s equal-protection clause.²
• In the complaint, Students for Fair Admissions notes that the academy used to focus on “merit and achievement” when assembling its classes, but stated that race is now “wholly determinative” of who gets in.³
• The lawsuit filed in New York’s Southern District Court also lists the Defense Dept., Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, US Military Academy Superintendent Steven Gilland, and West Point Admissions Director Rance Lee as defendants.⁴
• Earlier this year, Students for Fair Admissions prevailed in a lawsuit that ended race-based admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, following a ruling from the US Supreme Court.⁵
• According to West Point data, as of October 2022, the academy had an enrollment of almost 4.4k cadets, comprising 2,693 whites, 483 blacks or African Americans, 545 Hispanics/Latinos, 414 Asians, and 38 American Indians or Alaska Natives.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²Associated Press, ³New York Times, ⁴POLITICO, ⁵CNN (a) and ⁶CNN (b).

Narratives

• Right narrative, as provided by Daily Caller. There’s no justification for West Point continuing to weigh race so heavily in its admission decisions. SCOTUS has already struck down race-based admissions at all other institutions of higher education and it’s time to apply the same standard to West Point, so as to avoid harming students who deserve acceptance but get rejected based on skin color.
• Left narrative, as provided by NPR Online News. Unlike other institutions of higher learning, the military has determined that a diverse student body will lead directly to improved performance of the organization in the field. Vietnam taught the military that a lack of minorities in officer positions affected its effectiveness on the battlefield, so the SCOTUS ruling shouldn’t apply to West Point or any other military institution.

Predictions