WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court has allowed West Point to continue considering race in its admissions process as litigation over its policies continues.
Judges on Friday rejected an emergency appeal to force changes to West Point’s admissions process. The order, issued without any notable opposition, comes as the U.S. Military Academy is deciding who will enroll in its next entering class, the Class of 2028.
Military academies were expressly excluded from a June court decision that ended affirmative action in nearly all areas of college admissions.
In a case involving Harvard University, the nation’s oldest private university, and the University of North Carolina, the court’s conservative majority said race-conscious admissions plans violated the U.S. Constitution. However, the high court made clear that its decision did not cover West Point or any other military academies in the country, raising the possibility that national security interests would influence the legal analysis.
“This order should not be construed as expressing any view on the merits of the constitutional issue,” the justices said in a short, unsigned order Friday, warning against reading too much into it.
Students for Fair Admissions, the student group behind the Harvard-North Carolina lawsuit, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in September. He filed a similar lawsuit against the Naval Academy in October.
Lower courts had refused to block the schools’ admissions policies while the litigation was ongoing. Only the West Point decision was appealed to the Supreme Court.
“Today and every day from now on is the day West Point can end another applicant’s dream of attending the Long Gray Line by adopting an illegal race-based admissions process.” lawyers for Students for Fair Admissions said in a court filing.
West Point graduates make up about 20 percent of all Army officers and nearly half of the Army’s current four-star generals, the Justice Department said in a brief asking the court to uphold the school’s current policy. .
West Point, located on the west bank of the Hudson River about 40 miles north of New York City, has taken steps in recent years to diversify its position by expanding into metropolitan areas such as New York, Atlanta and Detroit. I am teaching. .
“For more than 40 years, our nation’s military leaders have believed that a diverse Army officer corps is a national security imperative, and that achieving that diversity requires that more people join the military as cadets at the U.S. Military Academy. at West Point,” wrote Attorney General Elizabeth Preloger, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer.
