Students For Fair Admissions v … USMA, USNA, and USAFA?

It sounds like the military academies may get their chance to justify their race-based admissions practices. From Reuters:

Aug 3 (Reuters) – The group that took its case against affirmative action in college admissions to the U.S. Supreme Court and won is seeking to end an exemption for military schools, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions said on Thursday.

Edward Blum’s group launched its new campaign with a website called West Point Not Fair on which it asks: “Were you rejected from West Point? Or the Naval Academy or the Air Force Academy?

“It may be because you’re the wrong race.”

The group is using the site to collect the names, contact information and stories of people who were rejected by West Point, the Naval Academy or the Air Force Academy or who are planning to apply to those institutions. Blum said in an interview that people who respond could be possible litigants in any suit by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA).

Blum said he hopes the military academies will clarify in the next few weeks whether they would continue to use race and ethnicity as admissions factors.

Well, we hope so too. As Cdr Salamander observed, the GOs in charge weren’t exactly forthcoming on their plans or points of view on the topic in recent congressional testimony. (More sources and the opinions linked here.)

By the way, if you’re interested or possibly affected, here’s the SFFA & Academies website:

Were you passed over?

We already did the analysis and found that there were a lot of highly-qualified applicants passed over for diversity purposes, especially those who were Asian or White. So if you’re one of those, or know someone who was, then here’s an outlet for you.

How do you tell if you were competitive?

A reasonable first check is whether your credentials were at or above the average for the USMA classes. Example for class of 2027:

Another tool to use is the extremely helpful admissions WCS calculator here: https://www.gainserviceacademyadmission.com/west-point-admissions-calculator/

And if you got a Letter of Encouragement but were not offered admission, that’s a good indicator.

Other things to consider were your health and medical record at time of admission and nomination status.

So if you were competitive and just didn’t make it, it might have been something other than “not being good enough.”

Factual corrections and thoughtful criticism are welcome,