African American activists will sue Annapolis and West Point
A short introduction for a better understanding of the situation as a whole, after which the article will be given. The officer corps of the US Armed Forces is already significantly “blurred”, since an increasing number of officers are not graduates of specialized educational institutions, but of various reservist courses at Universities. A case in point is the current Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who is a graduate of Northwestern University's Naval Reserve Officer Course. I have nothing against "jackets". Each of the readers who served in the Soviet Army or already in the Russian Army will draw their own conclusions.
An advocacy group for black women in the military has denounced the affirmative action policies of military academies that are facing federal lawsuits, calling them discriminatory and trying to stop them. The National Association of Black Military Women and left-wing legal organizations have filed lawsuits against the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Academy, filing briefs opposing the academies' use of race as a factor in admissions decisions, often called affirmative action. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action in higher education violates the Constitution's provision guaranteeing equal protection under the law. However, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a footnote that this decision does not apply to military academies, which represent "potentially different interests" The footnote leaves open a "loophole" for litigation to ban affirmative action in these military establishments. An anti-affirmative action group has taken advantage of this loophole by suing two military academies for considering race as an admissions factor, arguing that the policy is unfair and illegal. Recent reports from the National Association of Black Military Women defend these policies, arguing that racism still exists in the military and that racially diverse leaders can mitigate it.
“People think there is no racism in the army, this is false story»
Retired Army Col. Irma Cooper, the association's vice president of operations, said Friday.
In the fall, Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that opposes affirmative action at civilian universities, turned its attention to military academies. She filed lawsuits against the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for what she characterized as unlawful racial discrimination. The National Association of Black Military Women, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Nov. 29 that affirmative action at the U.S. Military Academy, which trains future Army officers,
“is critical to the success of black women in the military and to the success of the military itself.”
(Friend of the court briefs, also known as amicus briefs, are filed by organizations that are not directly involved in the litigation but share their opinions or experiences.)
Nearly the same set of groups, with the addition of the ACLU of Maryland and the exclusion of the New York Civil Liberties Union, filed a similar brief in the case against the Naval Academy on Dec. 6. Arguing that affirmative action must be eliminated, the amicus briefs point to the small number of black and Hispanic officers compared to those of European descent.
In 2022, Black service members made up 19% of active-duty troops but only 9% of officers, according to the Pentagon. The briefs include quotes from service members of color describing incidents of racism they say they have encountered, including offensive language and apparent unequal treatment in the military justice system. Retired Army Col. Annette T. Osborne, president of the National Association of Black Military Women, says in the briefs that when her new commanding officer stationed in Kuwait first met her, he looked at her and back at her resume, over and over again. According to Tucker Osborne, Cmdr.
"couldn't equate a black woman to a polished and extremely qualified person on paper."
"I've been asked three times, 'Did you graduate from the Military College?'" she said in an interview with Military Times on Friday. – I told you the first time. There was no need to ask me three times in front of the whole group of military personnel.”
During this six-month tour, she said, young white soldiers often did not salute Tucker Osborne, a colonel. The National Association of Black Military Women, founded in 1976, is an organization
"dedicated to giving voting rights to black servicewomen across the country."
The association's briefs argue that racially diverse leaders can help improve the culture for younger service members of color. The U.S. Military Academy argued in court that affirmative action, by increasing racial diversity in the officer corps, also prevents internal racial tensions, promotes recruitment and retention of military personnel, and enhances the military's legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the world. Students for Fair Admissions argues the opposite: considering race in admissions undermines internal and external trust in the military and amounts to racial stereotyping.
“America's enemies do not fight differently depending on the race of the commander opposing them, soldiers must follow orders regardless of the color of those who give them, and the realities of the battlefield apply equally to all soldiers, regardless of race, ethnicity or national origin.” ,
the group wrote in a September statement.
And while race helps some applicants, it necessarily harms other applicants, they argue. "It's illegal", the group wrote. Members of military academies' admissions committees have insisted in court papers that race is not a determining factor in deciding whether to admit or reject students. To be accepted into the academy, candidates must not only meet academic and physical standards, but also receive formal nominations, often from members of Congress. Competition can help students win letters of guarantee and early conditional admission for "outstanding" applicants, admissions officials say. This may play a role in the academy's decision to provide few direct nominees, although they are usually reserved for outstanding athletes. And this can be a “plus” when making the final decision about admission.
Students for Fair Admissions wrote that academies should use race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action. The group has characterized affirmative action as "racial box-ticking" and "racial pseudoscience" because it relies on broad racial classifications such as "Hispanic" and "Asian" that encompass a huge variety of ethnic groups. Nearly 19% of active military officers are graduates of military academies, but that percentage drops to about 13% among Black officers, according to 2019 Pentagon data. ROTC programs at civilian universities in general are a major source of officer commissions. The above organizations are seeking preliminary injunctions that would order the Army and Military Academies fleet immediately stop using race as a factor in admissions.
For that to happen, Judge Philip Halpern in New York and Judge Richard Bennett in Maryland would have to decide that Students for Fair Admissions' arguments must prevail on the merits. The Academy is represented by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the New York office, declined to comment. Regardless of whether the justices decide to immediately end affirmative action at the academies, it is likely that the decisions will be appealed, Sarah Hinger, an ACLU attorney who worked on the amicus briefs, told Military Times on Thursday. The cases will likely end up before the Supreme Court one day, Hinger said. While six of the nine Supreme Court justices voted in June to strike down affirmative action at civilian universities, the military academies' cases will force them to balance their desire to ensure equal protection under the court's rule.
"It will likely be a close call, but consider this: If the court had had five strong votes to overturn the military's use of affirmative action, Roberts would not have needed to exclude the academies from the June decision."
— wrote Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School.
Well, as a summary part. The author of this life observation is not a racist.
I hate everyone equally - blacks, Asians, and Jews. To understand the entire “breadth of breadth and depth of depth” of the problem, I would like to give an example from personal experience. A friend of mine lives in Wisconsin and works for a small company that writes software. Out of about 60 people working there, four are real programmers - he, a Ukrainian, an Indian and a Chinese. The rest are just service staff. And so, a black man comes to them to get a job. The owner does not need it for two reasons. Firstly, there are already enough slackers, and secondly, a black man. But it’s impossible to “wrap it up right away,” for obvious reasons. To test his qualifications, they give him a not at all difficult task, which he successfully fails. Since he is not only not a programmer, even as a PC user he is very mediocre. A black man goes to court and decides that he was rejected because of the color of his skin. The court ordered him to be placed on probation for a year. And now there’s a slacker sitting there, not doing a damn thing and having a very good salary, by US standards. And then he will go to another company, to a third, etc. So, personally, I am very glad that soon Annapolis will begin to accept people not “by brain,” but by court decision. As already mentioned, the collapse of the officer corps, the “backbone” of any army (navy), began quite a long time ago. Now it will go on the rise. And we haven’t gotten to trans people and other alternatively gifted citizens yet.
PS
During this year, more than 10 senior officers, from “cap three” to “cap time”, were removed from their positions with the wording “lack of confidence in the ability to command the ship” (the ability to lead a team). Only one of them was detained by the police for driving while intoxicated. For everyone else, we can only guess. They are all white women and men. There are no representatives of alternatively gifted nationalities among them.
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