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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to continue using race in its admissions process while challenges to its procedures are being litigated.
In an unsigned order, the high court rejects a request for immediate intervention by the anti-affirmation activist group Students for Fair Admissions, citing the Jan. 31 application deadline for the academy’s next admissions class. did.
The group has successfully challenged affirmative action admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina to diversify their campuses.
But in last year’s 6-3 decision that struck down those policies, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a footnote that the majority’s opinion was a “potentially disparate benefit” for military academies in race-based admissions programs. He pointed out that the issue had not been addressed.
The Justice Department said in a Supreme Court filing that military leaders have long believed that a diverse officer corps is essential to a force’s effectiveness.
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The government said West Point’s admissions system should not be abolished, much less temporarily suspended in the middle of the admissions cycle.
New York based 2n.d. On January 29, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court’s ruling that the emergency measures were not warranted.
Students for Fair Admissions, founded by conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, argues that the policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of Title 14.th Fixed.
The group is suing the nation’s oldest military academy on behalf of high school seniors applying to West Point for the first time and college freshmen applying for the second time. Both are white.
West Point’s collective tuition practices are worse than Harvard’s because the school gives preference to only three races: blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans.
Approximately 10% of the recently admitted class was black, below West Point’s goal of 14%, according to the group’s filing. The school nearly met its goal of having an 11% Hispanic population.
Students for Fair Admissions filed a similar challenge against the U.S. Naval Academy. That trial is scheduled to begin in September.
In Friday’s order, the court said that denying the Fair Student Admissions Association’s request for an immediate injunction barring West Point from considering race “expresses some view on the merits of the constitutional question. It should not be construed as such.”
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