Sept 16 (Askume) – The group that persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to ban the consideration of race in college admissions will hold a test run at the U.S. Naval Academy on Monday to end earmark action policies that allow the military academies to still use affirmative action admissions.
The non-jury trial before a federal judge in Baltimore stems from a suit filed last year against the Annapolis, Maryland, school by Students for Fair Admissions , a group founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum.
His organization seeks to advance a June 2023 decision by the 6-3 conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court to ban decades of policies used by colleges and universities to increase the numbers of Black, Hispanic and other minority students on American campuses.
The ruling invalidates race-conscious admissions policies adopted by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, both of which SFFA has sued, alleging discrimination.
The decision, however, did not explicitly consider race as a factor in admissions to the military academies, where conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said there are “potentially unique” advantages.
Bloom’s group believes the Supreme Court’s ruling should be extended to military academies whose policies they say are discriminatory and violate the equal protection principle of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The company has filed two lawsuits to end this exception, and another suit is pending against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York State .
The administration of Democratic President Joe Biden has argued that the military has a legitimate need to consider race in admissions to prepare future generations of diverse officers, resulting in an increasingly diverse fighting force.
The trial will be presided over by US District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush who served for more than two decades in the US Army Reserve and the Maryland National Guard.
At a hearing in December, he rejected SFFA’s pretrial request to bar the Naval Academy from considering a run .
