The Supreme Court weighs whether to end affirmative action at West Point – By Ian Millhiser (VOX) / Feb 2, 2024
The guy behind the Harvard lawsuit attacking affirmative action turns his ire on the service academies.
Editor’s note, February 2, 5:30 pm ET: The Supreme Court released an order late afternoon on February 2 ruling in favor of West Point. The order, however, indicates that the justices only did so because they believe that a ruling by the Supreme Court would be premature right now. The unsigned order, with no noted dissents, says that “the record before this Court is underdeveloped, and this order should not be construed as expressing any view on the merits of the constitutional question.”
Last June, the Supreme Court handed down a sweeping decision abolishing race-conscious admissions programs at nearly every college and university in the country, with one notable exception: military service academies.
The Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard applies to civilian schools, but the Court also said in a footnote that it was not deciding whether academies such as West Point or the Naval Academy may continue to take steps to diversify their student bodies that the decision forbade in other schools. That footnote referred to the “potentially distinct interests that military academies may present,” but didn’t clarify what the six Republican justices who joined the Harvard decision think these “distinct interests” might be.
Now, however, this undecided question is before the Supreme Court in a new shadow docket case known as Students for Fair Admissions v. United States Military Academy West Point (Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiff in both cases, is led by Edward Blum, a former stockbroker who is now the driving force behind many lawsuits seeking to abolish policies intended to advance racial equity).
