US Naval Academy to defend race-conscious admissions policies at trial

PHOTO CAPTION: Midshipmen render a salute during the commissioning and graduation ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., May 24, 2024. REUTERS/Michael A. McCoy

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - The group that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to bar the consideration of race in college admissions is taking the U.S. Naval Academy to trial on Monday in an effort to end a carve-out that allows military academies to still employ affirmative action policies.

The nonjury trial before a federal judge in Baltimore stems from a lawsuit filed last year against the Annapolis, Maryland-based school by Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by affirmative action foe Edward Blum.

His group wants to build on the June 2023 ruling in its favor by the 6-3 conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court banning 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, both of which SFFA has sued and accused of discrimination.

The ruling, though, 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 is arguing 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.

It has filed two lawsuits to end the exception, the other of which is pending in New York state against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Democratic President Joe Biden's administration has argued that the military has a legitimate need to consider race in admissions to foster a future generation of diverse officers to lead to an increasingly diverse fighting force.

Baltimore-based U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush who served over two decades in the U.S. Army Reserve and the Maryland National Guard, will preside over the trial.

At a December hearing, he rejected a pretrial bid by SFFA to bar the Naval Academy from considering race.



(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis)