Military Academies Agree to End Race-Based Admissions in Landmark Settlement

Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) announced this week that it has reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that will permanently end the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy.

The agreement, approved at the highest levels of the Department of Defense, establishes four key requirements for both academies: applying no consideration of race or ethnicity in admissions decisions, maintaining no race-based goals or quotas, shielding race and ethnicity information from admissions personnel, and training staff to adhere to merit-only standards.

The policies will take effect immediately and apply to all future admissions cycles, according to the settlement terms.

The settlement represents a significant policy reversal from the Biden administration’s previous position defending race-conscious admissions at military service academies. Earlier this year, under President Trump’s Executive Order 14185, the Department of Defense determined that race-based admissions at military academies are not justified by military necessity and do not advance national security, cohesion, or readiness.

The Department formally abandoned its earlier position that a “compelling national security interest in a diverse officer corps” justified race-based policies, marking a sharp departure from decades of military diversity initiatives.

The agreement follows SFFA’s earlier litigation against the U.S. Naval Academy, where the organization successfully challenged similar race-conscious admissions practices.

Under the settlement terms, litigation against West Point and the Air Force Academy will be dismissed with prejudice, with each side bearing its own legal costs. The agreement preserves SFFA’s right to challenge any future changes to these policies.

“This is an historic day for the principle of equal treatment under the law at our nation’s military academies,” said Edward Blum, president of SFFA. “Together with the Naval Academy case earlier this year, this agreement ensures that America’s critically important military service academies will admit future officers based solely on merit, not skin color or ancestry.”

The settlement comes amid ongoing national debates over affirmative action policies following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively ended race-conscious admissions at civilian colleges and universities.

Military service academies had previously been considered potentially exempt from that ruling due to national security considerations and the unique mission of training military officers. However, the Trump administration’s policy shift has eliminated that distinction.

The agreement affects two of the nation’s most prestigious military institutions. West Point, founded in 1802, and the Air Force Academy, established in 1954, collectively graduate approximately 2,000 new military officers annually.