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The U.S. Naval Academy can continue to use race-conscious admissions policies, a federal judge ruled Friday in a closely watched case that followed last year’s Supreme Court decision rejecting the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
In the case brought by Students for Fair Admissions in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Senior District Judge Richard D. Bennett ruled that the academy had established that a diverse officer corps is important to national security and that the academy is a vital pipeline to that corps.
Last year, the Supreme Court rejected race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The ruling was focused on Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but upended more than 40 years of legal precedent, changed practices at selective universities across the country, and prompted numerous efforts to challenge diversity efforts at companies and government agencies.
In that case, Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court included a footnote carving out the use of race in admissions within the nation’s military academies, writing that the “opinion … does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar had argued to justices in that case that the armed forces have learned the hard way that strength and military readiness suffer if the officer corps does not reflect the diversity of the fighting force, and that it would not be possible to achieve that diversity without affirmative action.
This story will be updated.
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