White House tells Supreme Court diversity at West Point key to winning wars

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Biden administration told the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject an attempt to halt the use of race in West Point admissions, stating that diversity is a national security imperative. 

“For more than 40 years, our nation’s military leaders have determined that a diverse Army officer corps is a national security imperative and that achieving that diversity requires limited consideration of race in selecting those who join the Army as cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote. 

The Supreme Court added a caveat for military institutions in its 2023 decision to gut the use of affirmative action policies. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested military academies could have a “distinct interest” in race-based systems not reviewed by the court. 

Students for Fair Admissions — the group responsible for last year’s affirmative action challenge — filed an emergency application asking for a pause while its case against West Point proceeds in the lower courts. Prelogar urged the court to respect the majority’s ruling from last year and decline the invitation to halt West Point’s consideration of race in admissions. 

The advocacy group focused its arguments on the court’s ruling in SFFA v. Harvard, but the government said this ignores the military’s need for a diverse fighting force. 

“SFFA thus seeks to second-guess the Army’s ‘professional decisions’ about the ‘composition’ and ‘training’ of ‘a military force’ — matters that lie in the heartland of the military judgments to which this court has long afforded substantial deference,” Prelogar wrote. 

West Point uses race as one factor of many in admissions to meet the military’s national security missions. The government said West Point serves a vital purpose in preparing officers and leaders in the U.S. Army with 50% of the service’s current four-star generals hailing from the academy. 

“A lack of diversity in leadership can jeopardize the Army’s ability to win wars,” Prelogar wrote. “The Army learned that lesson through experience, after decades of unaddressed internal racial tension erupted during the Vietnam War.” 

The government points to accusations that white officers used minority servicemembers as “cannon fodder” in wars across the world. 

An advanced review of the emergency application commenced because Students for Fair Admissions claimed a looming deadline would result in conflicting application decisions. The government said this is not the case. West Point stops accepting applications on Jan. 31 but the school has been reviewing them since last August and will continue to do so until May. West Point has already issued hundreds of admissions offers. 

“The district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined that ‘to grant a motion of this importance with so much left open would be imprudent,’” Prelogar wrote. “This court should likewise deny SFFA’s request for an extraordinary injunction overriding longstanding military judgments based on a scant factual record, limited development of the legal issues, and a manufactured emergency grounded in an artificial deadline.” 

The high court could issue a ruling on the application at any time. 

Follow @KelseyReichmann

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