Dive Brief:
- Students for Fair Admissions sued the U.S. Air Force Academy on Tuesday over the institution’s use of race-conscious admissions, arguing that the practice denies applicants the ability to compete for spots “on equal grounds.”
- The group was behind the challenge to race-conscious admissions that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court banning the practice at civilian colleges. SFFA filed the new federal lawsuit against the Air Force Academy only days after it lost a similar case against the U.S. Naval Academy.
- SFFA's latest litigation shows it’s ramping up its legal challenges against race-conscious admissions at the nation’s military academies, which were exempt from the high court's decision last year. The group appealed the Naval Academy case last week.
Dive Insight:
When Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion striking down race-conscious admissions, he said in a footnote that military academies were exempted from the ruling because they had “potentially distinct interests” from civilian colleges.
Roberts pointed to arguments made by the Biden administration, which contended in court documents “that the effectiveness of our military depends on a diverse officer corps that is ready to lead an increasingly diverse fighting force.” Military academies’ ability to consider race in admissions is key to furthering that aim, the administration said.
SFFA has rejected these arguments. With its new case against the Air Force Academy, the group has now filed lawsuits over the admissions practices of three of the nation’s five military colleges.
In its latest lawsuit, the group argued that race-conscious admissions neither helps the Air Force Academy recruit top-tier talent nor fosters unit cohesion in the military.
“The Academy’s ongoing racial discrimination can have dream-shattering consequences for the individual applicants who are unfairly denied admission, but it barely moves the needle in terms of the overall demographics of the officer corps,” SFFA argued in the lawsuit.
The highly-selective Air Force Academy has struggled to boost its diversity.
In fall 2022, just 6% of the academy’s students were Black or African American, and 12% were Hispanic or Latino, according to federal data. Both of those shares are much lower than the percentages of military members in the U.S. Air Force, 16% of whom are Black or African American and 18.2% of whom are Hispanic or Latino.
SFFA has faced setbacks in its latest challenges, including last week’s ruling that upheld the Naval Academy’s race-conscious admissions. The federal judge in that case found the practices were necessary to further national security interests.
The group also sued the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last year, though a judge declined to stop the institution from continuing to use race-conscious admissions while the case is considered. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case.
