Latest news with #militaryacademies
CNN
5 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Anti-affirmative action group drops lawsuits against West Point and Air Force Academy after policy changes
Months after President Donald Trump ordered the nation's military academies to scrap policies that allowed admissions officials to consider race, an anti-affirmative action group this week dropped a pair of lawsuits against West Point and the Air Force Academy. Students for Fair Admissions threw out the two lawsuits after reaching an agreement with the administration that said the new admissions policy changes will be 'permanent' and that the elite military academies must notify it of any changes to the schools' policies so that the group can mount new legal challenges. Attorney General Pam Bondi welcomed the resolution to the two lawsuits, saying in a statement Tuesday that her department 'is committed to eliminating DEI practices throughout the federal government.' The decision by SFFA to drop the cases follows a similar move that it made in a case it brought against the Naval Academy over that school's admissions policies. 'Together with the Naval Academy case earlier this year, this agreement ensures that America's critically important military service academies will admit future officers based solely on merit, not skin color or ancestry,' SFFA president Edward Blum said in a statement. The Air Force case was brought in a federal court in Colorado in December and had not yet yielded any major rulings by the time Trump returned to the White House. The West Point lawsuit was filed in September 2023. In that case, a federal judge in New York ruled against SFFA, which then sought an emergency order from the Supreme Court barring the academy from considering race. The Supreme Court declined to take the group up on that request at the time, saying the case was 'underdeveloped.' The trio of lawsuits from SFFA were the group's latest front in its long-running legal battle against affirmative action policies at the nation's colleges and universities. In a landmark 2023 decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court invalidated admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that considered race as one of many factors in deciding which students to admit. That longstanding practice, the court ruled, violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. But the court explicitly declined to apply that same rationale to the military academies. The Biden administration had argued at the time that the federal government had a compelling interest in developing a diverse officer corps. In a footnote, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that no military academy was a party to the litigation that reached the high court. 'This opinion also does not address the issue,' Roberts wrote, 'in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.' That inspired SFFA, the same group that had sued Harvard and UNC, to launch separate litigation against each of the military academies, including the Air Force Academy in Colorado and West Point in New York. But Trump effectively headed off that litigation earlier this year by ordering that 'every element of the Armed Forces should operate free from any preference based on race or sex.' The change reversed a decades-long effort, during Republican and Democratic administrations, to make the officer corps better reflect the enlisted soldiers they lead and the country they represent. As part of the Trump administration's broader war on efforts to increase diversity, the president signed an executive order on January 27 barring the armed services from relying on 'any preference based on race or sex.' In early February, acting on that order, the Air Force eliminated the use of 'quotas, objectives, and goals based on sex, race or ethnicity,' including for admissions. As the Biden administration sought to defend the need for the military schools' policies before the high court in 2022, then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that 'our armed forces know from hard experience that when we do not have a diverse officer corps that is broadly reflective of a diverse fighting force, our strength and cohesion and military readiness suffer.' 'So it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps,' she said at the time.
CNN
5 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Anti-affirmative action group drops lawsuits against West Point and Air Force Academy after policy changes
Months after President Donald Trump ordered the nation's military academies to scrap policies that allowed admissions officials to consider race, an anti-affirmative action group this week dropped a pair of lawsuits against West Point and the Air Force Academy. Students for Fair Admissions threw out the two lawsuits after reaching an agreement with the administration that said the new admissions policy changes will be 'permanent' and that the elite military academies must notify it of any changes to the schools' policies so that the group can mount new legal challenges. Attorney General Pam Bondi welcomed the resolution to the two lawsuits, saying in a statement Tuesday that her department 'is committed to eliminating DEI practices throughout the federal government.' The decision by SFFA to drop the cases follows a similar move that it made in a case it brought against the Naval Academy over that school's admissions policies. 'Together with the Naval Academy case earlier this year, this agreement ensures that America's critically important military service academies will admit future officers based solely on merit, not skin color or ancestry,' SFFA president Edward Blum said in a statement. The Air Force case was brought in a federal court in Colorado in December and had not yet yielded any major rulings by the time Trump returned to the White House. The West Point lawsuit was filed in September 2023. In that case, a federal judge in New York ruled against SFFA, which then sought an emergency order from the Supreme Court barring the academy from considering race. The Supreme Court declined to take the group up on that request at the time, saying the case was 'underdeveloped.' The trio of lawsuits from SFFA were the group's latest front in its long-running legal battle against affirmative action policies at the nation's colleges and universities. In a landmark 2023 decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court invalidated admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that considered race as one of many factors in deciding which students to admit. That longstanding practice, the court ruled, violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. But the court explicitly declined to apply that same rationale to the military academies. The Biden administration had argued at the time that the federal government had a compelling interest in developing a diverse officer corps. In a footnote, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that no military academy was a party to the litigation that reached the high court. 'This opinion also does not address the issue,' Roberts wrote, 'in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.' That inspired SFFA, the same group that had sued Harvard and UNC, to launch separate litigation against each of the military academies, including the Air Force Academy in Colorado and West Point in New York. But Trump effectively headed off that litigation earlier this year by ordering that 'every element of the Armed Forces should operate free from any preference based on race or sex.' The change reversed a decades-long effort, during Republican and Democratic administrations, to make the officer corps better reflect the enlisted soldiers they lead and the country they represent. As part of the Trump administration's broader war on efforts to increase diversity, the president signed an executive order on January 27 barring the armed services from relying on 'any preference based on race or sex.' In early February, acting on that order, the Air Force eliminated the use of 'quotas, objectives, and goals based on sex, race or ethnicity,' including for admissions. As the Biden administration sought to defend the need for the military schools' policies before the high court in 2022, then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that 'our armed forces know from hard experience that when we do not have a diverse officer corps that is broadly reflective of a diverse fighting force, our strength and cohesion and military readiness suffer.' 'So it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps,' she said at the time.
CNN
5 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Anti-affirmative action group drops lawsuits against West Point and Air Force Academy after policy changes
Months after President Donald Trump ordered the nation's military academies to scrap policies that allowed admissions officials to consider race, an anti-affirmative action group this week dropped a pair of lawsuits against West Point and the Air Force Academy. Students for Fair Admissions threw out the two lawsuits after reaching an agreement with the administration that said the new admissions policy changes will be 'permanent' and that the elite military academies must notify it of any changes to the schools' policies so that the group can mount new legal challenges. Attorney General Pam Bondi welcomed the resolution to the two lawsuits, saying in a statement Tuesday that her department 'is committed to eliminating DEI practices throughout the federal government.' The decision by SFFA to drop the cases follows a similar move that it made in a case it brought against the Naval Academy over that school's admissions policies. 'Together with the Naval Academy case earlier this year, this agreement ensures that America's critically important military service academies will admit future officers based solely on merit, not skin color or ancestry,' SFFA president Edward Blum said in a statement. The Air Force case was brought in a federal court in Colorado in December and had not yet yielded any major rulings by the time Trump returned to the White House. The West Point lawsuit was filed in September 2023. In that case, a federal judge in New York ruled against SFFA, which then sought an emergency order from the Supreme Court barring the academy from considering race. The Supreme Court declined to take the group up on that request at the time, saying the case was 'underdeveloped.' The trio of lawsuits from SFFA were the group's latest front in its long-running legal battle against affirmative action policies at the nation's colleges and universities. In a landmark 2023 decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court invalidated admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that considered race as one of many factors in deciding which students to admit. That longstanding practice, the court ruled, violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. But the court explicitly declined to apply that same rationale to the military academies. The Biden administration had argued at the time that the federal government had a compelling interest in developing a diverse officer corps. In a footnote, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that no military academy was a party to the litigation that reached the high court. 'This opinion also does not address the issue,' Roberts wrote, 'in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.' That inspired SFFA, the same group that had sued Harvard and UNC, to launch separate litigation against each of the military academies, including the Air Force Academy in Colorado and West Point in New York. But Trump effectively headed off that litigation earlier this year by ordering that 'every element of the Armed Forces should operate free from any preference based on race or sex.' The change reversed a decades-long effort, during Republican and Democratic administrations, to make the officer corps better reflect the enlisted soldiers they lead and the country they represent. As part of the Trump administration's broader war on efforts to increase diversity, the president signed an executive order on January 27 barring the armed services from relying on 'any preference based on race or sex.' In early February, acting on that order, the Air Force eliminated the use of 'quotas, objectives, and goals based on sex, race or ethnicity,' including for admissions. As the Biden administration sought to defend the need for the military schools' policies before the high court in 2022, then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that 'our armed forces know from hard experience that when we do not have a diverse officer corps that is broadly reflective of a diverse fighting force, our strength and cohesion and military readiness suffer.' 'So it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps,' she said at the time.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
West Point and Air Force Academy Affirmative Action Lawsuits Are Dropped
When the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at colleges in 2023, the justices said the decision did not apply to military academies because they had 'potentially distinct interests.' The group behind the litigation, Students for Fair Admissions, sued shortly after to test that idea. It argued that the use of race in admissions at the academies, including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy, should also be struck down. On Monday, the group dropped its case, acknowledging a significant shift in the political landscape since it had brought its lawsuit. In some of their earliest actions in office, Trump administration officials reversed diversity initiatives, including the considering of race in admissions, at the military schools. A week after President Trump took office, he issued an executive order that stated that no one in the armed forces 'should be preferred or disadvantaged on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, color or creed.' In announcing the end of the cases on Monday, the president of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, called the moves historic. In a statement, the group said it had reached an agreement with the Department of Justice, on behalf of the Defense Department, that ensures that future cadets will be admitted 'solely on merit, not skin color or ancestry.' The Air Force Academy declined to comment immediately. Representatives of the Department of Defense and West Point did not respond to messages. The agreement on Monday stated that the Department of Defense had determined, after reviewing evidence, that considering race in military academy admissions 'does not promote military cohesiveness,' national security or any other interest. The settlement states that the military academies will have no goal based on race or ethnicity and will not track the race of applicants. It also says that if an applicant selects a race or ethnicity on an application, 'no one with responsibility over admissions can see, access or consider' that information before a decision is made. The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has long argued — first as a cable news host and then in his current position — that 'woke' policies undermine morale in the military. But some who have studied military history disagree with that assertion. 'Nothing in my nearly 25 years of experience in the military substantiates that argument,' said John W. Hall, a professor of military history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Hall, a 1994 West Point graduate, said that the military had been an early champion of diversity initiatives, 'not out of any sense of innate progressivism or certainly not wokeness.' Rather, he said, 'they were necessary for the effectiveness of the military.' He added that in exempting the service academies, the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, which involved race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, gave 'deference to generations of experience, expertise and lessons learned.' The settlement comes as the Trump administration has made stamping out any diversity efforts from colleges a pillar of its attack on higher education. On Thursday, the administration broadened this effort when it released a White House directive requiring colleges and universities to share a broad array of information about the race, test scores and grades of applicants and enrollees. It argued that a lack of data 'continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice.'
Russia Today
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Pentagon orders DEI quotas canceled in service academies
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued a directive ordering all military service academies to stop considering diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) criteria in admissions decisions. The memo, signed on Friday, states that MSA admission offices will no longer be able to apply any 'considerations of race, ethnicity or sex' when considering applicants and must base their decisions 'exclusively on merit.' Academies have 30 days to adhere to the new standards. Additionally, merit-based scores may also consider 'unique athletic talent' or other experiences such as prior military service and performance at a MSA preparatory school. 'This ensures only the most qualified candidates are admitted, trained and ultimately commissioned to lead,' Hegseth wrote in the order, adding that 'selecting anyone but the best erodes lethality, our warfighting readiness and undercuts the culture of excellence in our Armed Forces.' In a separate memo issued on Friday and seen by the Associated Press, Hegseth also ordered military leaders and commanders at the Pentagon to go through their libraries and remove all books related to DEI issues. The document reportedly stated that educational materials at libraries 'promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology are incompatible with the Department's core mission' and that military leaders must 'promptly identify' books that are not compatible with that mission and sequester them by May 21. The reforms follow a broader campaign by the administration of President Donald Trump to remove DEI-related programs and content from the military, including books in military libraries and instruction on gender ideology. Shortly after assuming office in January, Trump signed an executive order titled 'Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness', which prohibited any race- or sex-based preferences in the armed forces. That order similarly called for all military personnel decisions, including recruitment and promotions, to reflect a merit-based framework. The directive also outright banned transgender individuals from serving in the US military and instructed the Department of Defense to identify and dismiss all service members who have a history of gender dysphoria. Last week, the US Supreme Court upheld the president's ban.
