‘Eroding Morale’: Veterans Group Strikes Back At DOD Over Race-Based Admissions

Affirmative action in military service academies is a national security risk, a veterans group argued, directly contradicting the Department of Defense (DOD) stance presented at Monday’s supreme court hearings.

One of the cases argued Monday could overturn a fundamental principle by which the U.S. military determines who fills the officer corps ranks by making it unconstitutional to consider race in university admissions, a possibility DOD officials say would undermine racial diversity in the force and thus harm national security, according to Military Times. However, the military academies’ admission process could undermine national security by privileging race over qualification and fostering resentment among the ranks, a group of hundreds of veterans argued in an amicus brief.

“In the military, even slight differences in leader quality can make the difference between mission success or failure and life or death on the battlefield,” Scott McQuarrie, president of Veterans for Fairness and Merit (VFM), told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It is a national security imperative that DOD stop using racial preferences, by whatever name, and return to a race neutral, equal opportunity, merit-based system of selecting who will be our future military leaders.”