I think we agree. With any record before the board, I am most positive that they are aware of the race, color, or gender of the candidate.
It is illegal to use race as an admissions "points earning" evaluation criteria. I believe the supreme court made that clear in Gratz v. Bollinger.
In Grutter v. Bollinger, though, the court ruled that a University could "favor" ethnic minorities to increase "Diversity". I believe Scout Pilot has already talked about this methodology recently on this forum.
My understanding, from reading these forums, is that congressional vacancy winners are the candidates with the highest whole candidate score and that race is not taken into account in determining these scores and thus not taken into account in determining the winner of the district (I am not talking about those candidates chosen by their congressmembers directly). That would meet the requirements in Gratz v. Bollinger.
Now, I think Title 10 gives the service academies the ability to select candidates out of order after selecting the top 150 (if there is room in the class). The remaining slots will go to Soldiers, Minorities, Athletes, Leaders, Scholars.
I also believe that the service academy prep programs help the academies to reach these goals. USMAPS is for manly Soldiers, Minorities, Athletes while the Association of Graduates scholarship is primarily for Scholars and Leaders.
Forgive me if I am incorrect, but I think that is what I understand from numerous postings. Buff, Big Nick or Scout Pilot can correct me if I am wrong.
What does this all mean? Well, to limit the diversity discussions for West Point (or other service academies) to minorities leaves out the other areas where West Point strives for diversity.
The Service Academies are required to allow candidates to compete from every congressional district and if there is a qualified candidate from a congressional district with a nomination, that individual is getting in. Title 10 also limits the number of candidates that can come from a congressional district nomination to 5 at a time at the academy. Thus, for every top notch candidate from northern virginia that doesn't get in there is a "not so top candidate" from some "not as competitive" area who is getting in.
Is this fair? That just because someone if from a rural community they have a better shot at getting in then someone from a Washington Suburb? Depends on how you look at it. Congress believes that it is important to have geographic "diversity" in its military.
Additionally, half the board of visitors for West Point are members of congress and I am sure they are briefed on the admissions processes. If congress wanted to change the use of additional slots at West Point for Minorities they could easily change title 10. Their inaction (and in fact action, in allowing the additional slots) means that they support the use of these slots for further "diversity."
As was said earlier, if you disagree with how the service academies do their admissions process, call your congressman, West Point appears to be just following the law. It is a perfectly logical argument that diversity should not be an admissions goal, but it is obviously not one that congress agrees with.
To suggest that a candidate did not get in, though, because of minority candidates getting in is simplistic and presumptuous. If congress decided to eliminate diversity as a goal, they could just as easy remove those extra slots and give them back to the congressional districts.
), I don't see where there is any legal mandate to WP as to how they choose the vacancy winner of a Competitive slate. We are told they do it by WCS, but there is nothing legally binding about doing it that way. Selecting by WCS comes into play with the NWL.
