US judge upholds Naval Academy's race-conscious admissions policies
World
US judge upholds Naval Academy's race-conscious admissions policies
(Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy may continue to consider race when evaluating candidates to attend the elite military school, even after the U.S. Supreme Court barred civilian colleges from employing similar affirmative action policies.
US District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore rejected arguments by Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum, that the Naval Academy's race-conscious admissions program was unconstitutional.
The decision marked a victory for outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden's administration, which had argued that senior military leaders had long recognized that a scarcity of minority officers could create distrust within the armed forces.
But the future of the admissions policy is now in doubt with Republican President-elect Donald Trump poised to take office next month. His first administration supported lawsuits challenging affirmative action policies in higher education.
Blum's group had been attempting to build on its June 2023 victory at the Supreme Court, when the court's 6-3 conservative majority banned policies used by colleges and universities for decades to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and other minority students on American campuses.
That ruling invalidated race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But it explicitly did not address the consideration of race as a factor in admissions at military academies, which conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said had "potentially distinct interests."
President-elect Donald Trump asked a Georgia Appeals Court on Wednesday to end the criminal case against him in that state for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Blum's group after that ruling sued to challenge that carve-out with separate lawsuits against the Naval Academy and the US Military Academy at West Point, New York. The Naval Academy case was the first to go to trial, leading to Friday's ruling.
The group argued that the Supreme Court's ruling should be extended to those military academies, whose policies it claims are discriminatory and violate the principle of equal protection in the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment.
