Graduating cadets stand in formation at the United States Military Academy at West Pointin 2013. Then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered the commencement speech that year; last week, Hegel was removed as a member of the academy’s advisory Board of Visitors.

When the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court took a blowtorch to decades of affirmative action enrollment at institutions of higher learning in a June 2023 decision, it carved out a unique exception in a footnote: “The United States as amicus curiae contends that race-based admissions programs further compelling interests at our nation’s military academies,” it read. “No military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the (lower courts) addressed the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context. This opinion also does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”

Let’s take the........

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