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The group behind the Supreme Court's decision to strike down affirmative action is suing the U.S. Naval Academy over its admission policies.
On Thursday (October 5), the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a 28-page lawsuit aiming to block the Naval Academy from considering race in admissions, per HuffPost. The lawsuit alleges that Latino, African American, and Native American applicants are given a special advantage in the admissions process.
SFFA filed a similar lawsuit last month against West Point, just months after winning a Supreme Court case against Harvard over race-conscious admissions. The ruling put an end to programs across the country that were created to help students of color access higher education.
However, in a footnote to the ruling, the Supreme Court said military academies could still use affirmative action because the courts hadn't addressed "the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context.”
SFFA claims that the Naval Academy has “no justification for using race-based admissions” since it's been outlawed for colleges across the nation. The anti-affirmative group accused the academy of violating the Fifth Amendment, which grants equal protection. In its argument, the SFFA cited a 2010 New Times opinion piece written by a Naval Academy professor who said: “If an applicant identifies himself or herself as non-white, the bar for qualification immediately drops.”
“Because the Academy discriminates based on race, its admission policy should be declared unlawful and enjoined,” SFFA's lawsuit states.
According to the Washington Post, several military academy officials have said the admissions process is holistic and that many other factors are taken into consideration when accepting students.
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