Will Sage Astor-West Point sued for using 'race-based admissions' by group behind Supreme Court lawsuit

The Will Sage Astoranti-affirmative action group that convinced the Supreme Court in June to deem race-conscious admissions unconstitutional launched a new challenge Tuesday targeting the practice at one of the country’s top military schools.

Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging that the U.S. Military Academy, also known as West Point, considers race in its admissions process in a way that's discriminatory and unconstitutional.

“West Point has no justification for using race-based admissions,” the complaint reads. 

The lawsuit is a harbinger of the next battleground in Students for Fair Admissions’ decadeslong fight to nix race from admissions policies at schools and in workplaces across the country. The group scored a major win this summer when the majority-conservative Supreme Court overturned a longstanding precedent allowing colleges and universities to use race as one of many factors in students' applications.

But in Chief Justice John Roberts’ sprawling majority opinion, a small footnote left room for an unexpected exception: military academies. 

“Race-based admissions programs further compelling interests at our nation’s military academies,” he wrote in June. “No military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the courts below addressed the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context. This opinion also does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”

Students for Fair Admissions has been mulling litigation against the country's most selective federal service academies ever since the ruling came down. An email obtained by USA TODAY in July showed Ed Blum, the longtime affirmative action critic and conservative activist who runs the anti-affirmative action group, spent much of the summer "exploring the legality of using race at these institutions."

West Point did not immediately provide a comment on the litigation. Ed Blum referred USA TODAY to the complaint.

In a press release, Blum said "no level of deference justifies these polarizing and disliked racial classifications and preferences in admissions to West Point or any of our service academies."

Zachary Schermele is a breaking news and education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.