As the Supreme Court’s justices were sparring with each other last month over use of racial preferences in school admissions policies, the Biden administration’s top litigator kept coming back to one point: Think of the troops.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said if schools can’t enroll a diverse student body, the nation’s military won’t have the kind of leaders it needs to field, train and take into combat the world’s best fighting force.
“It is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps,” she told the justices. “And, at present, it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation’s service academies.