Last year’s decision by the Supreme Court against the legality of racial preferences in college admissions deliberately excluded the military academies. They were not parties to the case, and Chief Justice Roberts mentioned in a footnote that the government (i.e., the diversity-obsessed Biden regime) had claimed that racial preferences were very important in them, so the decision leaves the academies free to continue discriminating.
They have been challenged in court, so the case will be briefed and argued. Should we buy the government’s claim that the military must have “diversity” quotas?
In today’s Martin Center article, J. A. Cauthen argues that we should not. He is not convinced by the claim that military effectiveness depends on admitting the right quotas of students to the academies. Cauthen writes:
The federal government and activists argue that crafting a racially balanced officer corps is a “strategic imperative” of grave national-security importance. Failing to do so would inhibit combat effectiveness, foment racial tensions between enlisted personnel and officers, and cede the battlespace to our enemies. As Larkin et al. argue, however, the federal government and military offer no proof that combat effectiveness has been impaired or that racial animus is heightened because of numerical deviations in racial composition between enlisted personnel and officers. To the contrary, a recent Department of Defense report noted that pervasive violent extremism, racial or otherwise, in the military is virtually non-existent.
The assertion that the military won’t be effective unless we have a racially diverse officer corps is just as feeble as the assertion that “diversity” yields great educational benefits in all other colleges.
Cauthen nails the truth here:
What the Supreme Court made clear is that using race as a determinative factor to reward some groups at the expense of others in the admissions process is pernicious, immoral, and counter to law and constitutional norms. Military academies have no more compelling interest than do their civilian counterparts in elevating race above merit. They therefore must comply with the Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard and UNC.