Will West Point Have To Operate by Harvard Rules?

One of our favorite facts about West Point is that the first class it ever graduated — which was in 1802 — was 50 percent Jewish. That detail is often met with incredulity, but there it is. There were but two cadets in the class, and one of them, Simon Levy, a whiz in mathematics, was Jewish. Then again, too, the bottom half of the class was the Jewish one. The top half, Joseph Gardner Swift, was the better cadet overall and graduated first. No complaints.We mention that as a footnote to the debate that is about to erupt over admissions to West Point. This is precipitated by the decision of the Supreme Court last week to permit West Point to continue considering race in its admission process — at least until the court addresses the merits of a lawsuit against West Point by the same plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, that won against Harvard a finding that considering race in admissions is unconstitutional.This interests us at a time when America is preparing for a possible world war. Our famed solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, points out that for more than 40 years, our military leaders “have determined that a diverse Army officer corps is a national-security imperative and that achieving that diversity requires limited consideration of race in selecting those who join the Army as cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.”These “longstanding military practices,” General Prelogar notes in her filing in the West Point case, were, in the Harvard case, “acknowledged” by the Supreme Court. The Nine, she wrote, “emphasized that its decision” did “‘not address’” the “‘propriety of race-based admissions systems’” at America’s military academies. This, General Prelogar wrote, is owing to “the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”Good for her, we say. No one proposes to overlook the dark passages in West Point’s history, when racism was all too evident. West Point is still working to address that era. It named its newest barracks for Benjamin O. Davis Jr. That American hero, son of Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the Army’s first African American brigadier, was silenced for his entire four years as a cadet. That meant other cadets refused to speak, eat, or room with him.Yet Benjamin O. Davis Jr. went on to soar to glory in command of the Tuskegee Airmen. In World War II, he appeared in arms in, among other aircraft, the P-51 Mustang. He was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Silver Star. There is a moving YouTube video of Davis Sr. decorating his heroic son and others — and in front of their fellow airmen. Davis Jr. ended up as the first African American four-star general of the Air Force.SFFA, which won against Harvard, certainly minces no words in its early filings against West Point. “Even under its own telling,” the complainants allege, West Point has been violating the principles handed down in SFFA v. Harvard “worse than Harvard itself.” Its “asserted interests,” SFFA says, “would have courts try to measure whether racial preferences are necessary to make the Army ‘lethal’ on the battlefield or ‘legitimate’ in the eyes of foreign countries.”One of the things we learned in the Harvard case is not to underestimate SFFA and its now-famous founder, Edward Jay Blum. Our own instinct when the case was filed was to side with Harvard, but what won the day for SFFA, at least with us, was the evidence SFFA adduced. It was devastating in exposing attitudes against Asians, among others. Harvard now faces generations of repair work to its tattered reputation.One of the differences between Harvard and West Point is Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. It makes no mention of Harvard. Among the powers it grants to Congress, though, are to declare war, “raise and support” armies, and “provide and maintain a Navy.” Does that empower West Point to decide the diversity of the cadets it chooses from the candidates that members of Congress nominate? Its class of 1802 was commissioned without controversy.

Will West Point Have To Operate by Harvard Rules?

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