Unfortunately, it's a numbers game. And those numbers are part of a larger circle. In 2009, there were approximately 41 million blacks in the united states. That makes up approximately 13-14% of the population. Not very large. Of those 41 million; approximately half live in Urban areas. Due to poverty, economics, social pressures, etc... (Both for blacks, whites, etc...); inner city/urban educational systems are usually inferior to schools and the social importance of education outside of the urban areas. So strictly based on numbers, there's going to be a lot less blacks applying to the academies than whites. And many of the blacks who are standouts and exceed their urban peers academically, and want to break the chain of urban poverty, tend to be heavily recruited to other schools. Recruited doesn't mean athletics.
There is no doubt in my mind that there are plenty of top quality individuals of all minority demographics to meet or exceed the academy standards. Unfortunately, trying to get them to apply to a military academy, is a totally different issue all together. So, if the academies want to attract more minorities, of whatever class and demographic, they most times will have to lower certain standards in order to enlarge the pool of possible candidates.
This is a topic of discussion that will never be totally agreed upon. It is one that will never become completely fair. Do I blame the Navy? No, not at all. Not for what they are trying to achieve. But our country is expanding. More and more individuals are finding non-urban areas to move to. The military has actually helped in this. There are many blacks in/were in the military who after serving; whether 4 or 20+ years, tend to remain outside of the urban areas that they grew up in. Little towns in North Dakota, Idaho, New Mexico, Nebraska, etc... are watching their populations become larger in their own diversity. This will produce better educated children of all racial demographics.
But for now; colleges, military, academies, employers, etc... will continue to unfairly recruit students and employees. They will have good intentions and motives, but it will be unfair, even to the level of reverse discrimination, on some groups of individuals. But for most schools and employers; that's the commercial market. They can try all they want to attract a certain type of employer or student, but there's still certain elements that will sway certain people towards a particular school or occupation. They can justify their motives for whatever reasons they want.
But the military is different. Only a very small percentage of Americans will ever enlist or seek a commission in the military. And the individuals who do seek out the military, do it for many different personal reasons. To be enlisted, only requires a high school degree and basically no criminal record. (At least not an active or serious criminal record). Even the standards of OTS isn't much different except for the addition of a college degree. (It helps if it's In an area the military considers useful). But the academies have the highest standards of the entire military. And higher than many/most universities. It's standards alone prevent them from attracting the diversity it is looking for. It's not possible. You can't take 14% of the population; have 50% of them living in areas that by nature spawn educational mediocrity or even failure; then expect there to be a large enough selection of applicants.
We'll leave the athletes out of this discussion. That's a whole different topic with it's own motives, importance, some injustices, and solutions. But as for the rest of the applicants and potential appointees, there is going to be a lot of injustice in the appointment process if the military is trying to include racial/ethnic diversity in their appointments. As mentioned by a lot of people, this diversity definitely brings in it's own positives and benefits to the military. It's just a matter of how standards must be lowered, and thus unjustly leaving more qualified applicants out. Many of the "Lower Qualified" applicants have done quite well at the academies. Many graduate at all levels of the class's GPA strata. Some of these may have been individuals who weren't the best coming in, but became one of the best. According to West Point's 2013 class profile, (I use west point, because they have more minorities applying than air force does); their SAT stats "FOR THE CLASS of 2013" are:
SAT Scores*
Range Verbal Math
700-800 .......................19% ................... 20%
600-699 .......................44% ................... 57%
500-599 .......................33% ................... 22%
400-499 .........................4% ..................... 1%
300-399 .........................0% ..................... 0%
Mean .............................623 .................... 642
Only 4% had a verbal less than 500. But it's possible that THAT PARTICULAR CADET, could have had a 600 in math. Same with only 1% of cadets have below a 500 in math. They could have had higher in the other areas. Same with the 500-600 scores. These aren't composite scores. They're individual test scores. So, even if we added the 4+1 and said "Inaccurately" that 5% of the class of 2013 had SAT scores below 500, that would be about 65 cadets.
Point is; unless you're the 1st person on the final wait list that didn't receive an appointment, I don't think it's a major problem if increasing diversity (Which I think is important, as long as it's ALL DIVERSITY and not just skin color and sex), means that some standards are bent or lowered sometimes.