Military academy leaders, lawmakers clash over ‘woke’ policies

When the Supreme Court ruled last month that racial preferences in admissions at U.S. colleges and universities was unconstitutional, the justices carved out a sole exception for the nation’s military academies. They said institutions like West Point and Annapolis had “distinct” diversity interests owing to their unique mission of turning out the nation’s top military officers.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, the leaders of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy faced questions on the fallout from the ruling, while denying that their organizations are mired in “woke” progressive ideology, that they clamp down on dissenting viewpoints, or that they rely on racial quotas to fill their ranks.

“We’re still assessing the Supreme Court ruling. We’ll have to get back to you,” Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilland of West Point told GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, chairman of the House Armed Services’ military personnel subcommittee.

Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark of the Air Force Academy also punted the question.

“I don’t want to get out in front of that until we’re able to really analyze this,” he said.

The two generals and Vice Admiral Sean Buck, superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, appeared before the committee and faced at times uncomfortable questions.

Mr. Banks said he is concerned that trendy academic topics like gender theory have replaced a foundation of science and academic rigor at the nation’s military academies. Instead, cadets and midshipmen are urged to use “inclusive language” and “safe spaces” have been created to protect them from “microaggressions” and “violent words.”

“I’m afraid that the service academies aren’t much different than the other elite universities, where dissent has been silenced and the free flow of ideas — a hallmark of higher education — has all but ceased,” Mr. Banks said.

Vice Admiral Buck, who will retire at the end of the month, said the service academies reflect the nation they serve,  and each incoming class should be a cross-section of America. The Naval Academy relies on objective factors such as class ranking and grades as well as more subjective qualities like character and resilience when selecting midshipmen.

“We look at the ‘whole person’ concept. Demographics is just one of the attributes that we look at,” Lt. Gen. Clark said. 

Democrats on the subcommittee accused their Republican colleagues of creating a myth that “woke” diversity policies are driving every decision at the nation’s service academies and at the Pentagon under President Biden.

“That’s simply not the case,” said New Jersey’s Rep. Andy Kim, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. “I feel like we’ve been in this hearing room several times already, talking about these issues over and over again this year.”

Mr. Kim said he recently spoke to several midshipmen who spoke about the need to improve leadership training at the U.S. Naval Academy.

“We’re not getting to those types of issues and those priorities because we constantly keep coming back to this,” he said.

Rep. Mike Waltz, Florida Republican, denied that the GOP members are blowing the issue out of proportion. 

“We have cadets, military members, and their families who are bringing this to us on a consistent basis,” said Mr. Waltz, a former Army Green Beret who served multiple tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East. “I have an entire binder of these issues.”

Rep. Pat Ryan, New York Democrat, said he was disturbed by the “tone and tenor” of the discussions.

“Culture wars are not what our young men and women want to be part of,” Mr. Ryan, a West Point graduate who served two tours in Iraq said.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion invalidating race-based admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina last month laid out a sole exception to the ruling for the military academies, citing his reasoning in a footnote that legal scholars say may only delay the question for the schools.

“No military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the courts below addressed the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “This opinion also does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”