Naval Academy Minority Admissions: Fair Without Being Equal?

This is one of those times when it pays to let the dust settle.

A month ago, U. S. Naval Academy English professor Bruce Fleming caused a fuss when he wrote an article for the opinion page of the local Annapolis newspaper, The Capital,
that claimed recent increases in the number of blacks and Hispanics admitted to the academy is occurring at the expense of better qualified white applicants.

Of course, Professor Fleming's allegations roiled the blog sphere and talk radio; and were noted in follow-on articles in The Washington Post and USA Today. I agree that there is something patently un-American about selecting someone ahead of someone else with relatively superior grades.

But what if -- as is the case at the Naval Academy, and many major colleges and universities -- grades were only one measure of an applicant's suitability? Would it then be fair to choose a "B" student over an "A" student, if the "B" student exhibited greater potential to fulfill the stated purposes of the institution?

By his own admission, it has been nearly a decade since Professor Fleming served on the Naval Academy's admission board. In the intervening years, the Academy began emphasizing a "whole person" concept in its selection of Midshipmen, which means that not every applicant with good grades will trump an applicant with poorer grades but high potential to serve our nation as a naval officer.

Such is the change that seems to offend the professor. Were it as simple as "racking and stacking" according to grade point averages (GPA) -- assuming for a moment that everyone agreed on how to regard the less than uniform way the nation's 37,000 high schools arrive at grades -- admissions boards, such as the one on which Professor Fleming served, would be unnecessary. Such is the problem with "objective" evaluations: While they may be equal, they can be far from fair.

In the three years that I served on the staff of the Naval Academy (2001 - 2004), I noticed that the professors (most of whom were civilians with scant military experience) cared most about academics while the military folks, who were responsible for Midshipmen professional development, cared most about such practical subjects as leadership, moral and character development, and physical training.

So, it is no surprise that Professor Fleming thinks poorly of an admissions process that seems to favor the general needs of the Naval service over an individual applicant's GPA.

Yet, the Naval Academy's purpose, according to its vision statement, is to be "the nation’s premier source of leaders for the Navy and the Marine Corps who embody the highest standards of character and professionalism, and who aspire to lead and serve their country in peace and war. "

Such aspirations for an institution need not mean that persons with good grades need not apply, but perhaps that academic achievement is only one element needed by a publicly-funded institution with a mandate to provide a diverse graduating class for service in an increasingly diverse Navy or Marine Corps.