Federal Judge Upholds Naval Academy’s Race-Conscious Admissions Policies

A federal judge on Friday ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy may continue to consider race when evaluating candidates to attend the elite military school, even after the U.S. Supreme Court barred civilian colleges from employing similar affirmative action policies.

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore rejected arguments by Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum, that the Naval Academy’s race-conscious admissions program was unconstitutional.

The decision marked a victory for outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, which had argued that senior military leaders had long recognized that a scarcity of minority officers could create distrust within the armed forces.

But the future of the admissions policy is now in doubt with Republican President-elect Donald Trump poised to take office next month. His first administration supported lawsuits challenging affirmative action policies in higher education.

Blum’s group had been attempting to build on its June 2023 victory at the Supreme Court, when the court’s 6-3 conservative majority banned policies used by colleges and universities for decades to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other minority students on American campuses.

That ruling invalidated race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But it explicitly did not address the consideration of race as a factor in admissions at military academies, which conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said had “potentially distinct interests.”

Blum’s group after that ruling sued to challenge that carve-out with separate lawsuits against the Naval Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The Naval Academy case was the first to go to trial, leading to Friday’s ruling.

The group argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling should be extended to those military academies, whose policies it claims are discriminatory and violate the principle of equal protection in the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

But Bennett, an appointee of Republican then-President George W. Bush who served over 20 years in the U.S. Army Reserve and the Maryland National Guard, concluded the Naval Academy had “established a compelling national security interest in a diverse officer corps in the Navy and Marine Corps.”

“Specifically, the Academy has tied its use of race to the realization of an officer corps that represents the country it protects and the people it leads,” he wrote in a 179-page ruling.

Blum in a statement said SFFA was disappointed by the ruling and planned to appeal, first to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, if unsuccessful there, the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It is our hope that the U.S. military academies ultimately will be compelled to follow the Supreme Court’s prohibition of race in college admissions,” he said.

The Naval Academy trains officers for both the Navy and Marines. According to the Justice Department, Black people comprise 17.5% of the Navy sailors and 10.5% of Marines, but only 8.3% of Navy officers and 5.9% of Marine officers.

White people by contrast make up 62.8% of Navy sailors and 75.5% of its officers. White individuals comprise 56.5% of Marines but 81.4% of officers, the department said.