The U.S. Military Academy recently requested that the Supreme Court refrain from intervening in an ongoing disagreement regarding the use of race in its admissions procedure. The academy’s response was prompted by Students for Fair Admissions, a group of students who are opposed to the consideration of race in college admissions. They asked the Supreme Court to issue an order that would interrupt the school’s existing practice of integrating race as part of its admissions criteria.
This came about following a 35-page filing by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who was representing the interests of both the school and the Department of Defense. This was in reaction to last week’s appeal by the Students for Fair Admissions, who were also behind last year’s attempts to challenge the admissions processes at the University of North Carolina and Harvard College. In both cases, the schools’ programs were deemed invalid by the Supreme Court, effectively terminating the application of affirmative action in college admissions.
Amy Howe, writing for the SCOTUSblog, outlines in explicit detail how Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion for the Harvard and UNC cases, clarified that the court’s decision was not applicable to West Point and other service academies due to the unique interests implicated in admissions for these institutions.
Following the court’s decisions, Students for Fair Admissions filed a case in a New York federal court in the previous fall, with the goal of preventing the school from considering race until the legality of West Point’s admissions scheme has been clarified. The request was, however, rejected by the lower courts, leading to last week’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
In a substantiated rebuttal, Prelogar wrote that the Army’s top leadership over the past four decades has determined the attainment of a diverse Army officer corps through limited consideration of race during admissions as a “national-security imperative”. He contended that Students for Fair Admissions did not provide any substantive reason for rejecting these confirmed principles, especially not in unrushed preliminary discussions backed by incomplete records.
The case continues to unfold, with Students for Fair Admissions having the option to file a secondary brief that serves as a response to the rebuttal filed by the academy. The justices could make a final decision on the group’s request upon submission of this brief.