what counts as a minority?

[AcademyFriend1]

There is a pending Supreme Court case that could possibly rule that it is unconstitutional in "regular" college admissions to take race into account in admissions. If the case is decided that way (which it might be -- four justices had to vote to take the case and one assumes they did so because they thought they could overrule current precedent in which race may be a factor in college admissions), I've been curious as to whether the service academies will change their approach or whether they will argue that there is a service-related reason (for example, good order and discipline; recruiting considerations) for trying to ensure that the officer corps reflects the racial diversity of the force and/or wider society.

There is a long history of civilian courts deferring to the military's judgment about what it needs to do its job(s). So I could see a possibility of the service chiefs arguing that SA admission and admission to officer training programs should stay with their current approach in terms of the diversity issue, and courts perhaps deferring to their views. Or, alternatively, perhaps the SAs will go to a model of looking at socio-economic status (they already do this to an extent, I believe), which would still produce a more racially/ethnically diverse cohort than admissions decisions based mainly on the GPA/SAT/ACT axis.

We'll see over the next couple of years how this plays out, but there may be some major changes coming, at least in the civilian college admissions world.

 

[cb7893]

IN MY OPINION, using the skin color to determine diversity doesn't work to match up with the goal of promoting diversity.

During my Beast, I had two white roommates - far from from typical one was an Army brat that has been all over the world and other one was from a small town in South. I (non-white) was from a big city. So my room had a good diversity without any skin color.

My yuck year roommate, a URM by his skin color, but a backgroun of "typical" white kid from a suburb.

I worked with a candidate that got no attention because he marked "other" for his race and when we corrected it got all the attention and more.

Went to interview a candidate that the admissions office identified as URM, he was a "typical" white kid from a suburb.

I think the real under represented group is poor "white" kids. But these poor "white" kids are considered as same as the rich "white" kids.

As long as we think diversity is about different skin color, we will never have true diversity.

Thank you for expressing what would have taken me hours to compose...with much more credibility than I have.

As much as I despise the elite (Ivies, Stanford etc.) schools' presumption to be able to be able to gather a "community", their admission preference standard is more weighted towards "first in family to attend college".

This allows them to differentiate between the 2nd generation Chinese-American child of a cardiologist attending private school with tennis lessons on the weekend, and the off the boat Vietnamese kid who was stirring pots of pho at his parents' restaurant before school.

I would like to think that the SA's can differentiate between an advantaged background and a legit "had to work his a** off" background.

 

[BigNick]

Exceptionally difficult subject. Let me first say that everyone who gets in WP is fully 3Qd and deserves to get admitted (at least 99%-no process is perfect).

You must realize that our society is very race and gender conscious and activists groups work hard and lobby Congress and the Armed Forces to make sure their racial or gender group gets "a fair deal and equal opportunity'. They then closely MONITOR the situation and resulting stats. We live in a VERY POLITICALLY CORRECT society.

Many people - maybe most - believe that diversity is a good thing and that WP and the Army officer corps should reflect the racial and gender make-up of the force (many police departments do the same thing). Whether or not that is true and agreeing on the definition of diversity is a matter of opinion. However, that is the way it is. The ARMY AND WP CLEARLY define minority groups based on specific races AND HAVE GOALS THEY TRY HARD TO MEET.

As for goals vs quotas in the Army and West Point let me give an opinion based on a great deal of experience at both WP and the Army. Goals are not quotas but "good officers" do everything they can to reach their goals. This is true in the Admissions process and it is VERY TRUE in our Army in the promotion system. Bottom line - people (mostly white males) are sometimes "passed-over" on the NWL in order to select a minority or in some cases a female candidate to meet these goals. There is no need to "dodge" this fact.

This DOES NOT MEAN that ALL of the minorities or women are given "special" treatment. Most are fully or best qualified and need no preferences or quotas.

What I would like to see is this: AGGRESSIVELY seek out good minority and female candidates and help them through the admissions process. THEN SELECT THE BEST PEOPLE BASED ON TITLE 10 REQUIREMENTS REGARDLESS OF RACE OR GENDER. If one group is under or over-represented so be it.

 

[buff81]

You can debate the "why" all you wish.

I'm not trying to debate. I apologize if it came across that way.
I just wanted understand what you thought the 'why' was.

The 'why' is stated perfectly by AdacdemyFriend1-

..... to ensure that the officer corps reflects the racial diversity of the force .....

The Officer corps doesn't need to be primarily white males from NoVA and Texas.

Nominations help keep the geographic balance in check and composition goals help keep the cadets at WP from being all 'only' scholars or all 'only' leaders or all 'only' athletes or all white or all 'other' skin color kids.

WP is not that well known west of the Mississippi.
A lot of kids do not know the opportunities that West Point has to offer.
I've heard of High School college counselors that have not even heard of West Point or if they have, they think that since it is a military school that it is a place for 'trouble' kids to go to.

WP spends an incredible amount of time and effort getting the word out about WP. Yes - minorities are targeted, but so are soldiers. Ads are placed in soldier/Army/main stream magazines, billboards are placed outside posts. There is a new WP video that is geared towards soldiers.
Is anyone complaining because a candidate 'got in' because they wear a uniform?

Efforts are made to reach minorities because WP is not widely known in many minority communities and families. If WP is heard of, many times it is misunderstood.
The goal for Outreach is to educate and inform in order to increase the number of minority applications. Not to get every minority that applies an appointment. Quantity of applications to find the quality candidates.
All appointees whether minorities or soldiers or scholars or women - ALL - have to meet the minimum qualifications. The African American kid with a 34 ACT, President of the SGA, star football player, that can't pass the CFA, won't get an appointment. Therein lies a big difference between WP and other colleges. Not many civilian schools would turn that candidate away. But WP is not like civilian schools. You have to not only have to be academically qualified but fit and healthy to survive at WP.
WP doesn't want to set a candidate up for failure at WP. If you can't prove that you can physically handle WP (CFA) , then you don't need to go. If you are not medically sound ( DoDMERB) to handle WP, then you don't need to go. If you can't handle the vigorous academics (Class rank/test scores), then you don't need to go. WP doesn't want kids to experience failure at WP. So - ALL candidates must be qualified to get an appointment.
In regards to the WCS - one does not get points for being a minority.

Let's face it - not all High Schools are equal. Not all offer AP. Not all give students the best chance to learn and excel. USMAPS helps those that have potential to succeed at WP but are academically lacking in Math and English. Still - if you can't do well at USMAPS, then you won't be going to West Point.

Don't downplay the role that nominations plays in whether one candidate gets an appointment and another doesn't. A candidate with great stats may not get an appointment because another kid in the district made 10 points higher on the SAT and therefore got the vacancy, while the kid in the neighboring district had lower stats, but got the vacancy. Being the vacancy winner has become more and more important as the class sizes get smaller.

No one has the right to look at any cadet at WP and judge how they got in. There are way too many variables to make that determination. WP does a pretty good job at choosing the USCC. Apparently, they are really good at it. Attrition is getting lower and lower.

There are many stories of really great and outstanding candidates who do not get an appointment. It is heart-wrenching not only for the candidates and their families but also the FFR/MALOs and the Admissions dept. They don't enjoy telling candidates - sorry - but we can't offer you an appointment. Even those of us on SAF who follow a candidate's journey over a year or two or three, feel a twinge of sadness and pain when those that want it so badly, get the TWE.

The mission of the Directorate of Admissions is:
"To make all possible efforts to inspire and enroll a diverse, high-quality class of cadet candidates who are motivated toward the completion of West Point and a military career and to meet class composition goals without sacrificing quality"

WP Admissions is doing their best to fulfill that mission.

 

[Luigi59]

Don't downplay the role that nominations plays in whether one candidate gets an appointment and another doesn't. A candidate with great stats may not get an appointment because another kid in the district made 10 points higher on the SAT and therefore got the vacancy, while the kid in the neighboring district had lower stats, but got the vacancy.

Not a very good argument if you are advocating the nomination system.

Can you tell me why Candidate A who lives 10 miles away from Candidate B (but in another district) makes the academy more diverse, or "better" simply because of this slight geographic difference?

Is there any real hard data that shows taking candidates from 50 states produces better officers than taking them from 41 states?

Would WP really suffer if there were only 26 cadets from California instead of 55?

URM advocacy can be advanced without Congressman and Senators getting involved with a nomination process.

Yes, I know it's not going to change, it is what it is - both the nomination system and the push for race-based diversity.

 

[MemberLG]

. . .

Yes, I know it's not going to change, it is what it is - both the nomination system and the push for race-based diversity.

It is what it is. I am not an advocate of the current diversity outreach, but I can't come up with a better solution unless SA Admissions get significant additional resource.

West Point diversity outreach office has an officer in charge and one full time officer for each region. I don't know what they do day to day, but my dealing as the state field force coordinator have been limited. Once I coordinated visit to schools with majoirty URMs. I personally did three schools visits, to include a student telling me that "joining the Army is like joining the Devil" and according to a movie Bush invaded Iraq for oil. Again, these are just uninformed kids. In my opinion, the outreach needs to start at 8th and 9th grade and continured, not once in 11th grade with follow ups in 12th grade during the admission process. We can't do significant outreach with just one full timer per region stationed at West Point and relying on volunteers that works full time. I will also tell you not all volunteers are equal. Off all the active volunteers I have in the state, I don't have a URM volunteer. Some volunteers are not comfortable visiting inner city schools.

 

[VonFritz]

I totally agree with Luigi59! We unfortunately, live in a society where everything we say or do has some "political correctness" associated with this. WP, to a degree, is a casualty to this way of thinking. The Army is not going to be a better place because you have a certain amount of minority officers in it. It will be better, more efficient Army because it has the highest qualified officers leading it - regardless of color, sex, geography... I would be interested to see what the diversity ratio would be if candidates were selected strictly on criteria that makes them the best qualified candidates! Not based on goals or quotas or, whatever else you want to call it!

 

[Vista123]

why

This is a very difficult conversation to be had without exploring the reasoning behind the military's desire to have a diversity. Why is this valued?

 

[kinnem]

I totally agree with Luigi59! We unfortunately, live in a society where everything we say or do has some "political correctness" associated with this. WP, to a degree, is a casualty to this way of thinking. The Army is not going to be a better place because you have a certain amount of minority officers in it. It will be better, more efficient Army because it has the highest qualified officers leading it - regardless of color, sex, geography... I would be interested to see what the diversity ratio would be if candidates were selected strictly on criteria that makes them the best qualified candidates! Not based on goals or quotas or, whatever else you want to call it!

I'm just a poor civilian slob at home with a kid doing NROTC without a scholarship. So what do I know? However, IMO, there is more to be considered when building a military other than efficiency and merit. I presume that we need a military that can garner national support, especially in time of war. You don't want people to be saying "Well its not MY army. There is no one from my region or skin color in it". Although I'm sure political correctness is part of this, it is not the only reason for it. Perhaps its a poor analogy, but Lincoln appointed Generals from all political parties and ethnic groups in order to forge support for the Union in the Civil War. To some degree the same thing is going on here. I'm sure there are many here who remember the comments during Viet Nam regarding black men fighting a white man's war and the black population was over-represented in the enlisted ranks while under-represented in the officer corps. Not that Viet Nam garnered a lot of support, but certainly a lot of black suport was lost due to this perception. JMHO.

 

[BillSL]

This is a very difficult conversation to be had without exploring the reasoning behind the military's desire to have a diversity. Why is this valued?

This is from 1997:

"The argument for use of special selections at the Academy went well beyond the needs of the normal college or university. For the Academy, the issue of special selections in minority recruiting was an issue of the needs of the Army. Specifically, in the Army of the early 1970s, 25% of the population comprised enlisted blacks yet less than 6% of officers were black. In the same way, 3.5% of the Army’s enlisted persons were Hispanic, while less than 1% of officers were Hispanic. After almost two decades of civil rights initiatives, the Army, like the nation, was characterized by continued racial tension and problems of perception. In short, the Army needed minority role models for this large number of enlisted counterparts."

Source: http://digital-library.usma.edu/lib...many_colors_evolution_minority_recruiting.pdf

Not so sure if the same justification can still be applied... but there it is.

 

[MemberLG]

This is a very difficult conversation to be had without exploring the reasoning behind the military's desire to have a diversity. Why is this valued?

Poltical Correctness.

You can't question the military's desire to have a diversity without defining the purpose of the military. No one question the lack of diversity in NFL or NBA.

In my opinion, the primary purpose of our military is to fight and win our nation's wars (I know I am old school). So what's important is skills relate to our fighting ability, not how diverse we are. When I was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle commander, I didn't care about what race my gunner and my driver were, I only cared about their shooting and driving abilitiies. What some non-military folks don't realilze is the diversity within the military. An example of military specific diversity where civilians might see just same Infantry officers, I see different source of commissioning, serving in different unit types (light vs mechanized infantry), serving in differnt locations, different duty assignments, different deployment experience and so on.

Of course, in today's political correctness, certain things trump actual diversity.

 

[bpu]

Enough standing on a soapbox

Admissions' job is not to pick the absolute "best" candidate on a case by case basis. They are Army officers and their job is to do what the Army orders them to do. The Army's goal is to put the best Army, collectively, in the field.

What is the role of the head coach of the US Olymbic basketball team? To put the best team on the court to win the gold medal. Does that mean picking the "best" 12 players? NO!

You can't have 12 guards or 12 centers. You can't have all O players and no D players. You can't have the 12 with the best NBA resumes (HS applications?) because they may not be best suited for Int'l BB rules vs. NBA rules (HS experience does not translate into the best officers).

Were the 2 most qualified players not selected "more qualified" than the last 2 players picked for the team? Probably, but picking the 12 best individual players does not mean the team would be as strong.

I will not debate how an inner city minority with difficulties may be a better candidate, or not, than a suberb kid with money and good schooling. Others have made that point well.

Perhaps, academically, the weakest "minority" population that gets "breaks" in admission at a SA is prior enlisted. I imagine their applications are "lower quality" than the skin color bantering going on here.

From all I know prior enlisted make not only outstanding cadets but outstanding officers.

If someone gets NWL and doesn't get an appointment then that person should keeping trying next year. Debating AA and getting rid of the MOC nomination system is nothing more than a waste of time.

 

[bgrant94]

So first we are passed over for good jobs because of our skin pigment. Then, after 400 years of stunted educational and economic growth, we are resented for being given so-called "special treatment" because, of course, there is no way a minority could beat out a white male in a "fair" competition. Damn, can't win.

Brings to mind something that I have heard many adults, black ones and white ones alike, tell us minorities from a young age. "You have to work twice as hard everyone else. And even then you won't be good enough." Many kids say "Wait, so I need to work twice as hard just to be half as good? Psh! Why even bother?"...Thats what they teach us in school

No offence to anybody. I'm not calling you a racist, just stating the facts. And I'm not giving minorities a pass either because the "it's not fair" argument with these things is pretty pathetic works for no one.
[QUOTE;Luigi59]I believe that we are long past judging people based on skin color.[/QUOTE]

Maybe that's right...in some northern states. But down south that truthfully is not the case. White vs Black, White and Black vs Hispanic, Mexican's vs every other subgroup of Hispanics, Rich white kid vs poor white kid, Light skin black vs dark skin black. It doesn't stop, even a good number of Africans despise black Americans because they don't get why we didn't somehow free ourselves sooner. When I grew up in Okinawa Japan, everyone was mixed so there were no problems. The second I set foot in America I was called many names I did not know the meaning of(was 9 yrs old). It was hard to come to grips with the fact that in any country BUT America, I am known as an American. Never lived in Africa and have no allegiance there so um...not exactly sure I have to be called that.

Honestly, this thread is doing nothing to help anyone. No one here has the power to change anything with their complaints. The originator begged everyone not to turn this into the diversity pros and cons argument argument that it has become. Please please PLEASE! Enough with the pity party already, it is extremely unattractive.

 

[dunninla]

This is a very difficult conversation to be had without exploring the reasoning behind the military's desire to have a diversity. Why is this valued?

Just to clarify... it is not technically the military's desire. The diversity mandate came down in 2009 from the Secretary of Defense, a civilian, in cooperation with the desires of Congress and the Executive Branch (POTUS).

 

[America's Finest]

For purposes of admissions at West Point, a minority is:
African American
Hispanic
American Indian

There is a separate minority admissions officer that you will be assigned to if you are a minority.

Just to clarify: You "may" be assigned to a separate admissions officer. I know plenty of people fall into the top 3 categories but chose to not involve themselves with the minority outreach program. Most of them believed something along the lines of "separate isn't equal" and would rather be denied via normal admissions means than accepted through a separate one based on the color of their skin. The rest were simply not aware the program even existed.

 

[GoSox]

Not a very good argument if you are advocating the nomination system.

Can you tell me why Candidate A who lives 10 miles away from Candidate B (but in another district) makes the academy more diverse, or "better" simply because of this slight geographic difference?

Is there any real hard data that shows taking candidates from 50 states produces better officers than taking them from 41 states?

Would WP really suffer if there were only 26 cadets from California instead of 55?

URM advocacy can be advanced without Congressman and Senators getting involved with a nomination process.

Yes, I know it's not going to change, it is what it is - both the nomination system and the push for race-based diversity.

In the Marine Corps they talk sometimes about how President Harry S. Truman advocated getting rid of the Corps; basically, some clever lobbying in Congress (and an outstanding performance at the Chosin Reservoir) ended talk of abolishing the USMC. The Marines understand that in a democracy, lobbying and public opinion matter.

I'd argue that the Service Academies that have nominations understand the same thing. If West Point and Annapolis didn't have the nomination system, you wouldn't have 435 Congresspeople who could reliably count on the nice publicity of the grip-and-grin photos with happy nominees or ecstatic SA grads in dress uniform. And maybe when Tom Ricks or one of the commentators talked about closing down the SAs because it's cheaper to produce officers solely from ROTC, a lot more Congresspeople would have gotten on board with that. The geographic diversity via the nominating system works REALLY well at garnering unified national legislative support for the Service Academies.

And as long as we have the geographic diversity, I definitely don't have a problem with the military telling me that they think it makes sense to push for a critical mass of officers who are going to look like the troops. I once heard Colin Powell talk about race relations in the service in the early 70s (when he was one of a handful of black officers) and it sounded brutal and depressing.

Just my two cents, along the same lines as Kinnem (who said it a lot better).

 

[GoSox]

Just to clarify... it is not technically the military's desire. The diversity mandate came down in 2009 from the Secretary of Defense, a civilian, in cooperation with the desires of Congress and the Executive Branch (POTUS).

I read a good book while at USNA, "Sea Change at Annapolis," or something to that effect, by an author named Gelfand. The diversity push at the academies (he focused mainly on USNA, of course) has been around a lot longer than 2009 (going back to at least the early 70s if not before). The book explored a lot of the thinking of senior uniformed and civilian leadership on why it made sense to try to expand the black presence at USNA (and later other minority groups).

I'm a freckle-faced Irish type from (sure you couldn't have guessed) Boston, btw.