(NAME-MCE) Diversity Debate at Naval Academy

Tue Jul 7 08:22:37 CDT 2009

As a former Navy recruiter in Florida during 1986-89, I can attest to the fact that it is unofficial policy, but nevertheless the real policy of the US Navy to admit black applicants with lower Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) scores than non-black applicants. The lower standards are called Category Four (CAT IV) and during my three year experience, only black males were allowed to join the Navy in south Florida with ASVAB scores this low. The rationale for lowering the standards was to increase the overall number of black recruits; the pool of higher qualified black males was insufficient to meet the Navy's recruiting goals for the desired number of black candidates.  

Often times we would turn away potential white recruits who had CAT IV scores, because those CAT IV slots were reserved for black males. Of course, we did not tell our non-white applicants about our diverse recruiting practices. Rightly, we feared a lawsuit. 

Regards,

Kearney Lykins

Kearney_Lykins at yahoo.com

________________________________
From: Anselmo Villanueva <anselmo.villanueva at gmail.com>
To: name-mce at nameorg.org
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2009 10:33:13 AM
Subject: (NAME-MCE) Diversity Debate at Naval Academy

Diversity Debate at Naval Academy

An English professor who has served on the admissions committee of the U.S.
Naval Academy has set off a debate at Annapolis and in military circles with
an article suggesting that standards have been lowered to admit more black
and Latino students, The Washington Post reported. Bruce Fleming's article,
which ran in The Capital, charges that there are dual standards for white
and nonwhite applicants, with significant differences in the grade and test
scores required for the admissions committee to declare an applicant
suitable for admission. The Post article noted that Annapolis officials deny
admissions practices that go as far as Fleming suggests. But Fleming noted
that as the Naval Academy has seen significant increases in black and Latino
enrollments it has also seen significant increases in the percentage of
students with mathematics SAT scores below 600 or who need a year of
pre-college work (although the figures for those two categories of students
are not broken down by race).

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http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/OPN/2009/06/14-47/Guest-Column-The-cost-of-a-diverse-Naval-Academy.html?sid=ST2009070203194

Opinion

Guest Column: The cost of a diverse Naval Academy
By BRUCE FLEMING
Published 06/14/09

The Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced in Annapolis
recently that "diversity is the number one priority" at the Naval
Academy.

The Naval Academy superintendent, Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, echoed him.
Everyone understands that "diversity" here means nonwhite skins.

Fowler insisted recently that we needed to have Annapolis graduates who
"looked like" the Fleet, where enlisted people are about 42 percent
nonwhite, largely African American and Hispanic.

The stunning revelation last week was that the Naval Academy had an incoming
class that was "more diverse" than ever before: 35 percent minority.

Sounds good, only this comes with a huge price tag. It's taxpayers who
bankroll the military. Yet nobody has asked us if we're willing to pay this
price. Instead we're being told there is no price to pay at all. If you
believe that, you probably also believe in the Tooth Fairy.

A "diverse" class does not mean the Naval Academy recruits violinists, or
older students (they can't be 23 on Induction Day), or gay people (who are
thrown out) or foreign students (other than the dozen or so sent by client
governments).

It means applicants checked a box on their application that says they are
Hispanic, African American, Native American, and now, since my time on the
Admissions Board of the Academy, where I've taught for 22 years, Asians.

Midshipmen are admitted by two tracks. White applicants out of high school
who are not also athletic recruits typically need grades of A and B and
minimum SAT scores of 600 on each part for the Board to vote them
"qualified." Athletics and leadership also count.

A vote of "qualified" for a white applicant doesn't mean s/he's coming, only
that he or she can compete to win the "slate" of up to 10 nominations that
(most typically) a Congress(wo)man draws up. That means that nine
"qualified" white applicants are rejected. SAT scores below 600 or C grades
almost always produce a vote of "not qualified" for white applicants.

Not so for an applicant who self-identifies as one of the minorities who are
our "number one priority." For them, another set of rules apply. Their cases
are briefed separately to the board, and SAT scores to the mid-500s with
quite a few Cs in classes (and no visible athletics or leadership) typically
produce a vote of "qualified" for them, with direct admission to Annapolis.
They're in, and are given a pro forma nomination to make it legit.

Minority applicants with scores and grades down to the 300s with Cs and Ds
(and no particular leadership or athletics) also come, though after a
remedial year at our taxpayer-supported remedial school, the Naval Academy
Preparatory School.

By using NAPS as a feeder, we've virtually eliminated all competition for
"diverse" candidates: in theory they have to get a C average at NAPS to come
to USNA, but this is regularly re-negotiated.

All this is probably unconstitutional. That's what the Supreme Court said
about the University of Michigan's two-track admissions in 2003.

Once at Annapolis, "diverse" midshipmen are over-represented in our
pre-college classes, in lower-track courses, in mandatory tutoring programs
and less challenging majors. Many struggle to master basic concepts. (I
teach some of these courses.)

Of course, some minority students are stellar, but they're the exception.
Despite being dragged toward the finish line, minorities graduate at about a
10 percent lower rate than the whole class, which of course includes them
(so the real split is greater).

Don't want to believe me? Have a lawyer sit in on a year's worth of
Admissions Board deliberations. Or better still, pray that one of the
stellar white students rejected to give a seat to a "diverse" candidate sues
us. That's the only way taxpayers will ever fully understand the price to
them of "putting diversity first."

The writer is an English professor at the Naval Academy.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/07/02/ST2009070203194.html

Naval Academy Professor Challenges Rising Diversity

By Daniel de Vise Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 3, 2009

Of the 1,230 plebes who took the oath of office at the U.S. Naval Academy in
Annapolis this week, 435 were members of minority groups. It's the most
racially diverse class in the academy's 164-year history.

Academy leaders say it is a top priority to build a student body that
reflects the racial makeup of the Navy and the nation. The service academy
has almost twice as many black, Hispanic and Asian midshipmen as it did a
decade ago. Much of the increase has occurred in the past two years, with a
blitz of 1,000 outreach and recruitment events across the country.

But during the past two weeks, a faculty member has stirred debate by
suggesting that the school's quest for diversity comes at a price. Bruce
Fleming, a tenured English professor, said in a June 14 opinion piece in the
Capital newspaper of Annapolis that the academy operates a two-tiered
admission system that makes it substantially easier for minority applicants
to get in. Academy leaders strenuously deny Fleming's assertion. Fleming
served on the academy's admissions board several years ago.

The debate, fanned on talk radio and blogs, comes as the Naval Academy and
many other colleges and universities are striving to build diversity without
resorting to quotas or formulas that might be found unconstitutional. A 2003
Supreme Court decision upheld diversity as a goal but encouraged
universities to consider applicants as individuals, a philosophy embraced by
the Naval Academy and much of the higher education community.

Fleming says the increase in minority enrollment at the academy has brought
in students with lower grades and SAT scores who need more remedial classes
and are less capable of the scholarship for which the academy is known.

"First of all, we're dumbing down the Naval Academy," Fleming said in an
interview. "Second of all, we're dumbing down the officer corps."

Academy leaders say the school has diversified with no loss of scholarship.
Incoming freshmen of every race ranked near the top of their senior class in
grade-point average and test scores, according to academy records. The
academy admitted fewer than 10 percent of the African Americans and
Hispanics who applied for admission to the Class of 2013 and a similar share
of whites.

"This class we inducted yesterday may be the most talented overall that we
have ever brought into the Naval Academy," said William Miller, academic
dean and provost of the academy. "We have increased the standards, rather
than dumbing them down."

Fleming's broadside has lit up military blogs and message boards and
prompted inquiries from the academy's governing board about the integrity of
the admissions process. The professor has spoken on Laura Ingraham's
conservative radio talk show and fielded a steady stream of e-mails from
students, most of whom are spending the summer on ships and bases in
far-flung locales.

"I think that diversity is a good thing," Erick Meckle, a third-year
midshipman, said in an e-mail to The Washington Post from Europe. "However,
if the selection process for applicants is based solely on skin color rather
than raw talents, then of course it's not fair."

Fleming said he was moved to raise the issue when he saw the dramatic rise
in minority first-year students, or plebes, this summer. Fleming served on
the academy's admissions board seven years ago and said he participated in a
process that blatantly favored minority applicants.

To win the admissions board's approval at that time, he said, a white
applicant had to present SAT section scores higher than 600 (out of 800); a
transcript of A's and B's; and a strong background of leadership in sports
and student life, reflected in a four-digit score called the whole-person
multiplier. Black and Hispanic students were routinely admitted with SAT
scores in the 500s; with B's and C's; and lower whole-person multipliers, he
said.

Miller said Fleming's account is "not the way the admissions board works,"
although he would not speak about "how it worked seven years ago."
Admissions Dean Bruce Latta said admissions is "a single process," with
every applicant considered as an individual. A star student from a
low-income community might get credit for overcoming adversity. "It's a
whole-person assessment on every person," Latta said.

Anthony Principi, a former secretary of veterans affairs who is chairman of
the academy oversight group known as the Board of Visitors, said he inquired
about the constitutionality of the admissions process after reading
Fleming's comments.

"I think it would survive a constitutional challenge," he said.

Fleming said some academy admission data support his claim. The share of
plebes who scored less than 600 on the SAT math test was 22 percent this
year, up from 12 percent in the Class of 2008. The number of freshmen coming
from the academy's one-year preparatory program, designed for remedial
studies, was 244 this year, the highest figure in at least 10 years. The
data are not classified by race.

On the other hand, 76 percent of the Class of 2013 came from the top fifth
of their high school classes, about the same proportion as a decade ago.
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