Posting #6: The story of affirmative action

Another common American story that has persisted for decades is that Affirmative Action benefits unqualified Americans of color and penalizes more qualified white Americans.  The tale goes that this is a fundamental violation of core American values, justice and merit, and that it must be undone under any and all circumstances.  The June 29, 2023 Supreme Court 6-3 decision that affirmative action race-consciousness is illegitimate in admitting students to Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill validates that story of grievance, and pundits expect that hundreds of colleges around the country will be scrambling to adjust their own affirmative race-conscious admissions policies.

Except at the three military academies under the purview of the Department of Defense. 

In what Supreme Court Justice John Roberts calls in his majority opinion “potentially distinct”  national security interests, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs are exempt from the decision’s repercussions and so may continue legally to use race-conscious admissions. In dissent, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson points to the carve-out’s hypocrisy: “that racial diversity in higher education is only worth potentially preserving insofar as it might be needed to prepare Black Americans and other underrepresented minorities for success in the bunker, not the boardroom.” That is, the decision reveals how people of color (including non-Americans) are considered best used as cannon fodder.  Another dissenter pointing to the exemption’s hypocrisy, Supreme Court Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor, writes “To the extent the court suggests national security interests are ‘distinct,’ those interests cannot explain the court’s narrow exemption, as national security interests are also implicated at civilian universities.”

And if the Supreme Court really were concerned that abolishing race-consciousness would endanger national security, as 35 former officers in an amicus brief claim, why did the decision not exempt the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), the producer of more officers—perhaps as much as 70 percent—than the service academies? Currently, Army, Air Force, and Navy ROTC is offered at more than 1700 institutions of higher education—the very institutions now prohibited from using race-consciousness for admission. So much for racially diversifying the officer corps and protecting national security.  

A fallacy of the common grievance story about Affirmative Action, though, is who it has actually benefited. As a white woman, I have been one of its greatest beneficiaries.  These policies have, since 1961, been designed to actively mitigate ongoing and pernicious discrimination against women, people with disabilities, and people of color in education, employment, and government contracting.

Although I haven’t studied the phenomenon, I have no doubt that the commitment to affirmative action has had exponential effects on my life and on those of the white women whose life paths have crossed mine.  Some of those effects meant I could participate in sports that didn’t even exist for girls before 1972’s Title IX, I could get a credit card in my own name by 1974, and in 1975 I could be in the third class including women at a previously all-male liberal arts college.  In the same year I would be in the third group of women in Army ROTC at that same college and maybe the second woman in that college’s history to bring to it a four-year ROTC scholarship.  Though the service academies were not open to women when I was applying to colleges in 1974, I could become a commissioned officer in the Regular Army (not the Women’s Army Corps) in 1979 and I could be stationed with a tactical unit in West Germany.  At the same time, I could earn a Master’s degree in International Relations while on active duty, I could control my reproductive health with contraceptives and access to abortion if necessary, and I could retain my original surname after marriage.  Later, I could expect to be admitted to a PhD program and to be considered for a tenure-track position as a professor.  Few, if any, of these opportunities were available to the women of the generations preceding mine and, as a middle-class white woman, I think it was largely the cultural capital I had to know that they existed and how to access them.

For instance, having been raised in an Army family, I knew the military culture.  That familiarity made it more ordinary for me to seek a full-ride Army ROTC scholarship, for my two older sisters to seek full-ride Army nursing program scholarships, and for four of my younger siblings to seek full-ride appointments to West Point.  In effect, we were legacy applicants because our father’s active-duty service advantaged us.  Though he hadn’t donated large amounts of money to his Army “alma mater,” his long career as an Army officer was essential to our going to college at taxpayer expense and to becoming commissioned officers following graduation from college.  Plus, the All-Volunteer Force needed us.

West Point and the other academies are transparent about this advantage.  A peculiarity of applying to one of the three service academies is having initially to be nominated to apply.  This nomination can come about in one of two ways.  The first is by a senator, a Congressional representative, or the Vice President.  Senators and Representatives are limited to having one cadet at each academy every year, so those spots are rare and competition is fierce.  The second is a Presidential, or “Service-Connected Nomination,” where “Sons and Daughters of ‘career military personnel’” are eligible to seek a nomination, in addition to others connected to service.  This insular, self-reproducing practice not only cements what has been called the warrior caste, it also limits the number of taxpayer-funded spots at the service academies available to people not already connected to the military.  

Still other higher education practices resemble what might be called “privilege” or affirmative action for military-affiliated Americans, practices that are needed at this point in time.  Not only are active-duty service members entitled to GI Bill benefits, they also can pass on their unused benefits to their spouse and children.  Spouses can receive financial assistance for educational programs leading to “portable career fields.”  Dependents of veterans who the VA determines have been severely disabled while on active duty, have died as an outcome of that disability, or are taken prisoner while on active duty are entitled to up to 36 months of higher education financial benefits. 

There are also policies that try to mitigate the challenges of military life for spouses, challenges that often lead servicemembers to leave active duty or discourage potential recruits.  With recruiting and retention in the All-Volunteer Forces now at a crisis point, it is crucial to mitigate these challenges with affirmative action.  For instance, given the many obstacles to enlisting among the very few who are eligible or interested (see Posting #3), the Army is spending more than $100m this year alone to host a preparatory course for hopeful recruits with “poor fitness or low aptitude test scores” to “get them up to service entry standards.” In regard to employment for military spouses—the ones who might pressure the servicemember to leave active duty—the recently-passed Military Spouse Licensing Relief Act means that military spouses who are licensed professionals in one state can easily—more easily than civilians—transfer that license to another. Furthermore, military spouses can be appointed to federal jobs without having to compete with other applicants, they can be recruited by corporations via the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, and they can compete for fellowships at companies via the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot.

The current administration has gone even further in its affirmative action advantaging for military members and their families.  In June 2023, an Executive Order entitled “Advancing Economic Security for Military and Veteran Spouses” was issued, its aim to address the crisis of recruiting and retention by affirming diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal workforce.  “As the Nation’s largest employer,” the Order reads, “we must be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and, in doing so, we recognize that military spouses are an underserved community.  Whether they choose public service, employment in the private sector, or entrepreneurship through building a small business, it is the policy of my Administration to advance economic opportunity for military spouses.”  Furthermore, “To ensure that the Federal Government is an employer of choice for military and veteran spouses, military caregivers, and survivors,” the Order declares, “executive departments and agencies…must strengthen their ability to recruit, hire, develop, promote, and retain this skilled and diverse pool of talent.”

These are affirmative action benefits for what the recent Executive Order terms the “underserved” military dependents.  I doubt anyone would begrudge these advantages to military members and their families, especially given Americans’ thank-you-for-your-service attitude toward the military.

But let’s not kid ourselves that these benefits have been earned based entirely on merit or even on the grantor’s kind-hearted attempts to provide equity.  It was the needs of the newish All-Volunteer Force that meant seven of the nine children in my family won/earned/were entitled to full-rides to college as an outcome of my father’s long-standing commitment to the US Army.  My mother won no considerations (as far as I know) except the expectation that she behave as a proper officer’s wife by not working outside of our home.  That was the status quo then; a new status quo prevails now.

These current affirmative actions are a function of the military’s needs right now.  Recruitment quotas are being missed and, with low unemployment rates and civilian jobs widely available, all the services are going to these extraordinary lengths to retain their active-duty members.

Interestingly, though, and in an echo of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent, a disproportionate share of those enlisted active-duty members are people of color, and women in those groups are disproportionately represented.  Affirmative action has worked too well in these “cannon fodder” cases.  While in the 2020 Census, Hispanic and Latino people made up 19.1% of the US population, by 2019, Hispanic or Latina women comprised 21.39 percent, or more than a fifth, of the total enlisted active-duty women in the military. An even more startling disproportion was represented among Black women.  Though Blacks constitute 13.6 percent and Black women, 7% of the US population according to the 2020 Census, women in that racial group make up 28.92% , or nearly a third, of the total enlisted active-duty women in the military.

This picture, of which Americans are choosing to serve and which are affirmatively offered commissions, differs markedly from my own active-duty experience in a tactical unit of forty years ago.  At that time, six years into the All-Volunteer Force, maybe 9% of the military’s officers were women and enlisted women made up about 14% of the total recruit numbers.  While women as a group were actively sought to join the All-Volunteer Force, because of their small numbers, women of whatever race or ethnicity or rank could not expect to be commanded by another woman or a man of color.

Still, while the numbers of enlisted Hispanic/Latina and Black enlisted women have grown exponentially in the intervening decades, sex-based affirmative action has worked at a snail’s pace among commissioned officers.  According to Military OneSource’s report, “2020 Demographics Profile,” only 18.9% of the military’s commissioned officers are female, the vast majority of them are below the rank of Colonel/06, and, when only 24.2% of the total military’s officers are “racial minorities,” which does not include people of Hispanic origins, it is still most likely that the enlisted Hispanic/Latina and Black women are being commanded by white men.

Finally, the Supreme Court’s decision on race-based admissions already has led 13 Republican States Attorneys General to write a letter to the CEOs of the 100 biggest companies, warning them that any actions on the companies’ parts that looked racially discriminatory—including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that are decidedly not affirmative action—could be grounds for litigation.  “If your company previously resorted to racial preferences or naked quotas to offset its bigotry,” the attorneys general wrote, because of the Supreme Court decision, “that discriminatory path is now definitively closed. Your company must overcome its underlying bias and treat all employees, all applicants, and all contractors equally, without regard for race.”

Just as I was privileged by affirmative action as a white woman, however, white men continue to be privileged at these corporations, disproportionate to their 30% representation in the United States.  “Of the 533 named executive officers across these corporations,” writes a February 2023 USA Today  article, “white men represent 7 in 10. And of those companies, about 1 in 7 had executive teams that were made up of only white men in 2022.”  The article concludes further that, “women—just 90 of them—make up 17% of named executive officers. Only 17 women of color were named executive officers in 2022.” 

Meanwhile, because more women than men apply to college, in an effort to attain gender parity, at many private, selective colleges and universities, often lesser-qualified men are accepted at higher rates than women. Unlike race-based admissions, this discrimination is perfectly legal.  This situation also prevails at the service academies, where the Congressional gatekeepers who can provide nominations not for the already military affiliated do at the rate of 79% men, 21% women.

So what?

So let’s get this straight.  First, middle-and upper-middle class white women have been the greatest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action law.  In my lifetime, these laws have given me (and my daughters) access to jobs and institutions and bodily autonomy that my mother’s generation would not have dreamed of.  Still, these laws have not guaranteed that equity predominates for white women, and even less so for women of color.  Witness the dominance of white men among corporate leaders cited above, or the predominance of white men over women of all colors nominated to attend the nation’s service academies.  If equal opportunity has been the nation’s aim with Affirmative Action since 1961, well, it ain’t there yet.

Second, lower-case affirmative action happens for many, many Americans.  By “lower-case affirmative action,” I don’t mean to signal that the laws per se protect these people or mandate that they be preferred over others.  Instead, I mean that many of us receive advantages over others, advantages that can be unearned, sometimes unmerited, and often circumstantial.  Admitting lesser-qualified men to colleges in the interest of approximating equal numbers of men and women is an advantage.  A patent preference for nominating men over women at the service academies is an advantage.  Granting military spouses special treatment in regard to employment and higher education is an advantage.   Doing what the services can to prepare potential recruits for enlistment is an advantage.  And doing what the services can to retain servicemembers with benefits like the GI Bill, bonuses, healthcare, and regular pay raises is an advantage. 

Which of these advantages are begrudged and which are seen as earned?  Which are necessary to move though time towards the democratic nation to which we Americans (ostensibly) aspire, and which are all about maintaining the power status quo?

I am thankful for the advantages that have accrued to me and mine, and I hope we all have used them responsibly.  It is curious to me, though, that white men seem to feel aggrieved that anyone but they should have advantages or that there even should be a level playing field.  More than one white, male, C-student who sat at the back of my small, liberal arts college classroom complained that had things been “fair,” he would have gotten the spot at Harvard, Princeton, or Yale to which he apparently thought he was entitled.  Given his lackadaisical performance in my class and obvious evidence of his too-hard partying the night before, chances are that he was one of those gender-parity admits. I don’t begrudge my college having to make that hard choice when fewer men apply to college than women.  I do begrudge the attitude of unearned privilege.

Undeniably, working-class white men have suffered with the outsourcing of American industry.  But why are 30% of the US population—or even less, since that percentage includes all white men, not just the working class—holding responsible for their struggles other strugglers, i.e. people of color, people with disabilities, people whose sexual identity is not heterosexual, people whose religious faith is not Christian, or women?  Instead of attacking so-called “woke” practices and policies, banning books, restricting women’s reproductive healthcare, limiting voting rights, and prohibiting teachers from teaching subjects that would offend their students, why are these struggling men not holding to account the corporate CEOs who took their working-class jobs abroad and now garner 400 times what a working-class worker might hope to earn?  And do those white, male, corporate capitalists feel entitled to their earnings?  Would it be heretical in a capitalist system to blame the corporate capitalists for the working-class man’s struggle?

Or is it just easier to attack the other vulnerables for the very few advantages they might have gleaned, gleaned especially at a point in history when the advantages are needed for the common good?  Is this unfettered attacking by aggrieved white men—and people who sanction the grievance—what is meant in the current-day United States as “freedom”?   

Following the traumas of World War Two, Simone de Beauvoir wrote about freedom in Ethics of Ambiguity: “A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom” (emphasis added).

In short: the advantages accruing to others who are vulnerable is a good thing for us all.