By Capt. Brent Ramsey, USN ret
STARRS Board of Advisors
Larry Purdy has written a lengthy article titled “We All Wear Green, We All Bleed Red, There is No Difference: Race-conscious Admissions Policies Have No Place at Our Military Academies.” It’s a critical read.
Background. Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) successfully won Supreme Court cases last year against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The decisions in these cases banned race-based admissions to colleges and universities. These decisions overturned the infamous Grutter case that had allowed colleges and universities to practice race-based admissions for more than two decades.
Unfortunately, the U.S. military academies were not party to those cases, so they continued using race as a factor in admissions. It was established during the Grutter case that the academies used race in admissions when a group of senior retired military officers filed an amicus brief in that case admitting their use. This was in 2003.
SFFA filed suit against the United States Naval Academy, challenging the lawfulness of those policies. That case was argued recently in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, and a decision is expected soon. Regardless of the outcomes at trial in both the Annapolis case and a similar case against West Point, it is likely that both cases will end up being further appealed and may eventually, like the Harvard and UNC cases, reach the Supreme Court.
Understand, the Biden administration wants to continue to use race as a basis for admissions to its service academies even though the Supreme Court has already ruled that such use is illegal at all the other colleges and universities — which happen to produce most of all commissioned officers in our military.
In an article for St. Mary’s Law Journal, 1968 Naval Academy graduate and retired attorney Larry Purdy has cogently and convincingly laid out the case against the US government’s continued use of race-based admissions policies at the three service academies.
Mr. Purdy’s comprehensive analysis of the cases brought by SFFA and the government’s defense of the use of race as a basis for admissions is a meticulously researched and articulated recitation of the history and facts surrounding these cases. He shows why both the Harvard and UNC cases and the U.S. government’s own policies and practices explicitly do NOT allow for the use of race in admissions.
For example, shown below are just a few of Mr. Purdy’s quotes from policy directives beginning with President Harry Truman back in 1948 and extending up to the present via the Department of Defense that clearly prohibit discrimination based on race:
- President Harry Truman issued his historic Executive Order in 1948 that called for “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services.”
- The DOD Human Goals charter, which was renewed in 2014, says, “Our nation was founded on the principle that each individual has infinite dignity and worth” and that DOD’s goal is through “a model of equal opportunity for all regardless of race, color … or national origin.”
- The 2015 Navy Regulation says, “Equal Opportunity shall be afforded to all on the basis of individual effort, performance, conduct, diligence, potential, capabilities, and talents without discrimination of race, color … or national origin.”
- DODINST 1350.02 of December 20, 2022, says Military Equal Opportunity is “the right of all Service members to serve, advance, and be evaluated on only individual merit, fitness, capability, and performance in an environment free of prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color … [or] national origin.”
- DODINST 1350.2 says, “Service members shall be evaluated only on individual merit, fitness, and capability.”
Furthermore, Mr. Purdy clearly documents that there is no substance to any of the arguments the government has brought to the discussion that have any merit or foundation. To wit, there is zero evidence that race is a factor in any leadership or readiness situation.
Why do we know this? Because the military does not even attempt to measure it.
Mr. Purdy quotes Brigadier General Ernie Audino, who says,
“If the Solicitor General and those generals are right, i.e. that racial diversity in our officer corps is a ‘national security imperative’ then the services would at least track racial percentages in their mandatory assessments of unit combat readiness, but they don’t. Racial diversity is not included, and never has been.”
A short review such as this cannot possibly do justice to the depth of research and analysis done by Mr. Purdy in eviscerating the government’s arguments in favor of continuing the use of race as a basis for admissions at the academies.
Not only does the government have no legal basis for continuing the practice, but there is also zero evidence the practice has improved performance, readiness, or lethality in our armed forces.
In fact, there is mounting evidence that the exact opposite is the case. People clearly understand that individual color-blind merit should be the sole arbiter of who gets admitted to our service academies, as well as promoted to top military leadership positions.
The retention and readiness problems of today can be directly attributed to this erosion of the concept of merit in our armed forces.
A full study of Mr. Purdy’s analysis is a must for anyone who wants the truth about race-based admissions at our service academies and the injustice and divisiveness these race-based policies perpetuate.
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