After Ending Affirmative Action At Military Schools, Trump Admin Asks Court To Dismiss Suit Against Naval Academy
The Trump administration and a conservative legal group are asking a federal appellate court to render the latter’s lawsuit challenging the Naval Academy’s past affirmative action policies as moot.
Brought Monday by the Department of Justice and Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), the joint filing was issued in response to the Trump administration barring America’s military schools from taking into consideration an applicant’s race and/or sex in the admissions process. As The Federalist previously reported, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo last month ordering the secretaries of the military to certify within 30 days that these schools “[o]ffer admission based exclusively on merit,” building upon a directive he issued in late January.
Citing the administration’s policy change, the DOJ and SFFA requested the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss SFFA’s appeal of a lower court decision rejecting their Biden-era challenge as moot. The parties further asked the appellate court to “vacate the district court’s opinion and judgment, and remand with instructions to dismiss the case without prejudice.”
“For the reasons set forth below, after conferring, the parties now agree that this case is moot,” the filing reads.
[READ: How DEI Left Service Academies In A ‘State Of Decay,’ And How Trump Can Fix It]
The government party specifically went on to acknowledge that the Naval Academy “changed its admissions policy so that race and ethnicity are no longer considered in any way at any point.” It further argued that the school “maintains no race- or ethnicity-based objective or goal, including any attempt to make the racial composition of the Academy’s classes approximate the racial composition of the Navy or Marine Corps, those branches’ overall officer corps, or the U.S. population.”
In a statement to The Federalist, SFFA President Edward Blum said the joint filing “is of enormous significance for our nation’s military readiness.” He also expressed hope that “the U.S. Military and Air Force Academies will pursue the same legal outcome,” seemingly referencing the SFFA’s Biden-era lawsuits challenging those academies’ past affirmative action policies.
“We applaud this extraordinary accomplishment by the President and the Department of Defense which restores the colorblind legal covenant that binds together our military institutions,” Blum said.
SFFA is the group that challenged the use of affirmative action in U.S. college admissions standards all the way to the Supreme Court several years ago. In a 6-3 ruling, the high court effectively nullified universities’ use of such policies, declaring that to do so violates Americans’ 14th Amendment rights.
That ruling did not pertain to U.S. military academies, however.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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