Pentagon also orders military libraries to pull books addressing ‘diversity, anti-racism or gender issues’

Graduating cadets wait to receive diplomas at the U.S. Military Academy commencement ceremony, Saturday, May 25, 2024, in West Point, N.Y. Alex Brandon, Associated Press

An applicant’s race, ethnicity or sex will no longer be considered for admission at any of the United States’ five service academies.

In a memo published Friday to senior military leadership, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said admissions to the institutions — which train graduates for the nation’s armed forces officer corps — will be based “exclusively on merit.”

“The Military Service Academies (MSA) are elite warfighting institutions with long histories of producing world class military officers,” wrote Hegseth.

“The Department owes it to our nation, our service members, and the young Americans applying to the MSAs to ensure admissions to these prestigious institutions are based exclusively on merit.”

Nixing all elements of affirmative action, the memo added, ensures “only the most qualified candidates” are admitted, trained and commissioned to lead “the finest fighting force in history.”

“Selecting anyone but the best erodes lethality, our warfighting readiness, and undercuts the culture of excellence in our Armed Forces.”

The United States has five service academies: the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

Friday’s memo echoes an earlier Hegseth memo directing that “the most qualified” individuals across the armed forces are placed in positions of responsibility “in accordance with merit-based, color-blind policies.”

The most recent memo directs the secretaries of the military departments to certify within 30 days that, for purposes of the 2026 MSA admission cycle and all subsequent cycles, the MSA admissions offices will:

Apply no consideration of race, ethnicity, or sex.
Offer admission based exclusively on merit.

Hegseth’s service academies admission memo did include a few caveats: Merit-based scores may give weight to “unique athletic talent” or other experiences, such as prior military service or high performance at an MSA preparatory school.

The Defense Department, Hegseth concluded, must never “compromise the high standards” at the nation’s service academies.

“A strong officer corps is essential to ensuring the United States military remains the most lethal the world has ever known.”

Admission updates reverse academy policies

Hegseth’s memos regarding admission practices follow a judge’s December ruling that the U.S. Naval Academy could continue considering race in its admissions process.

In that case, the judge found that military cohesion and other national security factors mean the school should not be subjected to the same standards as civilian universities, Navy Times reported.

The Naval Academy had continued to employ its affirmative action admissions program even after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 rejected such policies at civilian colleges and universities. That ruling was an outcome long sought by many U.S. conservatives, who have complained that white and certain other applicants were being disadvantaged, Reuters reported.

During a two-week bench trial last September, attorneys for the academy argued that prioritizing diversity in the military makes it stronger, more effective and more widely respected.

The case against the admissions policy was brought by the group Students for Fair Admissions, which was appealing the judge’s decision.

Attorneys for Students for Fair Admissions argued during trial that prioritizing minority candidates is unfair to qualified white applicants and that cohesion should arise from other sources, such as training and command structure.

The academy argued in that case that its admissions process considers many factors — including grades, extracurricular activities, life experience and socioeconomic status, according to court testimony. Race often played no role in the process, but sometimes it came under consideration in a “limited fashion,” attorneys for the academy wrote in court papers.

The Biden administration had argued in the case that senior military leaders had long recognized that a scarcity of minority officers could create distrust within the U.S. armed forces, which were racially segregated until 1948.

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett decided that the academy’s program was narrowly tailored to meet that interest by rectifying the “significant deficiency” in the number of racial minorities who are Navy and Marine officers and are trained at the Naval Academy.

Bennett said that while racial minorities currently make up 52% of enlisted Navy service members, only 31% of its officers are minorities. In the Marine Corps, the judge added, minorities comprise 35% of enlisted Marines but just 29% of its officer ranks, according to Reuters.

Military libraries reviewing diversity-themed books

Meanwhile, in another Friday memo, the Pentagon reportedly ordered all military leaders and commands to pull and review their library books that address “diversity, anti-racism or gender issues.”

The directive is the latest action taken by the Defense Department to “rid the military of diversity and equity programs, policies and instructional materials,” according to an Associated Press report.

It follows Hegseth’s earlier actions to remove hundreds of similar books from the libraries at U.S. service academies.

The memo on the latest library purge says that educational materials at the libraries “promoting divisive concepts and gender ideology are incompatible with the Department’s core mission.” It says department leaders must “promptly identify” books that are not compatible with that mission and sequester them by May 21, The Associated Press reported.

By then, the memo says, additional guidance will be provided on how to cull that initial list and determine what should be removed and “determine an appropriate ultimate disposition” for those materials. It does not say what will happen to the books or whether they will be stored away or destroyed.

According to the memo obtained by The Associated Press, a temporary “Academic Libraries Committee” set up by the department will provide information on the review and decisions about the books.

That panel provided a list of search terms to use in the initial identification of the books to be pulled and reviewed. The search terms include: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual and white privilege.