Affirmative Action—But Only For The Military Academies
In a footnote, the Supreme Court directs Black and brown advancement into a uniform.
When Chief Justice John Roberts issued his decision to kill affirmative action, he added, in a footnote, a revealing caveat. Race-based considerations can no longer factor into college admissions—except at US military academies.
My Nation colleagues are better equipped than I am to examine Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard as a matter of law, politics, and history. But as a "national security" reporter, I'm compelled to call attention to the purposeful perversity of preserving affirmative action only for the institutions that produce the next generations of military leadership.
Roberts snuck into a footnote that the majority's opinion "does not address the issue" of "race-based admissions further[ing] compelling interests at our Nation's military academies." Roberts did not feel compelled to address the "potentially distinct interests" the military possesses in affirmative action, let alone contextualize them within the court's reasoning, and handwaved that it was unnecessary because "no military academy is a party to these cases."