The superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point defended the goal of race-based admissions at a hearing on Wednesday, while denying it has race or gender-based admissions.
Indiana Congressman Jim Banks pressed Lt. Gen. Steven Gilland about the difference between “norms” and “priorities” in admissions during a military academy hearing on diversity, standards, and freedom of thought, but the superintendent of the military academy did not answer questions. After Banks uncovered a West Point report describing “race-based composition goals” he described as divisive and distracting Republicans from combat priorities, he instead defended the Academy’s diversity goals.
“What’s the difference between hope and quota?” Banks asked. (Related: DeSantis reveals plans aimed at watering down diversity efforts and promoting military accountability)
“We don’t have quotas,” Gilland said. “There are goals to be achieved, as I mentioned, in terms of leadership goals, young men’s and women’s categories of careers,” he said, as well as goals regarding the composition of scholars, leaders and athletes.
The House Armed Services Committee has held hearings following a Supreme Court ruling overturning race-based admissions at colleges that do not mention military academies.
Leaders at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy said they were still evaluating the legal implications of the ruling. They refused to explain how policy would change if the court applied the decision explicitly to military schools.
Banks presented the Academy’s Visitors Committee with a table from the 2017 report detailing class composition goals for the 2020 graduates, including goals related to racial categories such as Black, Hispanic and Asian.
“We have a class structure goal: If we don’t see them, we won’t see them,” Gilland told Banks. He confirmed that West Point University has not abandoned this practice and has set targets for the composition of its newest freshmen to graduate in 2027.
“These goals are set based on the composition of our officer corps.
Biden’s nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Q. Brown, told Congress this month that he had set demographic membership targets based on the general U.S. population.
However, according to a copy of the document obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, this may not always have been the case.
U.S. Military Academy Superintendent Testifies Curriculum and Admissions Criteria, @hascdemocrats @hascrepublicans – Live online here: https://t.co/zeziy7SeMp
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 19, 2023
The percentage of African Americans’ membership goals increased over time. In 2015, USMA targeted a class composed of 12%-15% African Americans and achieved a class of 10.7% African Americans. By 2019, the percentage of African Americans admitted to college had peaked at 15.1%, despite a goal of at least 14% African Americans each year, but dropped again to 13.8% in 2020.
Targets for Asian and Hispanic students were set below their respective percentages of the U.S. population each year, according to the document, and the target percentages did not match the percentage of Hispanic police officers.
“We have goals. We have composition goals,” Gilland repeated.
Vice Admiral Sean Buck, in contrast to Gilland, said the Naval Academy’s recruitment efforts have supported the increased diversity. “There are no race-based composition goals in the Naval Academy,” he said.
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