(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – In a new blow to the infamous “affirmative action” policy, officially ruled unconstitutional, a student group filed a lawsuit against the West Point Military Academy, attacking its continuing raced-based admissions.
The lawsuit against West Point was brought on Tuesday by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). This student group won a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court against race-based “affirmative action” three months ago involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
In June, in a 6-3 ruling in “Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard,” the Supreme Court rightly canceled affirmative action by determining that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Building on the court’s ruling that a “student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” SFFA is now suing West Point, insisting that it applies to all schools.
“Over the years, courts have been mindful of the military’s unique role in our nation’s life and the distinctive considerations that come with it,” SFFA President Edward Blum said in a statement.
“However, no level of deference justifies these polarizing and disliked racial classifications and preferences in admissions to West Point or any of our service academies,” he added, as cited by The Daily Caller.
SFFA’s lawsuit posits that the U.S. Military Academy discriminates against applicants based on race instead of using “objective metrics and leadership potential” for admission decisions.
The lawsuit points out that West Point has “benchmarks” for the number “African Americans,” “Hispanics,” and “Asians” that each class should include.
“Because skin color can be—and often is—a decisive factor for successful applicants who are chosen from those congressional nominee pools, it is equally dispositive for the other qualified nominees who are turned away,” SFFA argues.
“Put differently, because race is a ‘positive’ factor for some West Point applicants, it is necessarily a ‘negative’ factor for others,” the student group adds.
The SFFA attacks the U.S. Military Academy’s allegation racial quotas help the military legitimize itself through diversity.
Its lawsuit asks the court for a “declaratory judgment that West Point’s use of race in admissions is unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment.”
“Because the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinion in the SFFA cases expressly forbids all institutions of higher education from using race in admissions decisions, it must follow that the U.S. military higher education institutions must end their race-based policies as well,” Blum concluded.
