We reported on Friday that Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that won their earth-shattering case against Harvard and UNC that outlawed race-based admissions in higher education, had sued the United States Naval Academy and was proceeding to a bench, i.e. non-jury trial starting Monday: Trial Set To Begin in Naval Academy Affirmative Action Case:
The Naval Academy case is on a much-accelerated timeline. Discovery is already complete, literally lightning-quick for federal courts, and a bench, non-jury trial is scheduled to begin Monday September 16, 2024, as you can see from the court’s Scheduling Order, available here (scroll to the end).The Naval Academy trial is scheduled for two weeks of testimony every day, all day, with SFFA presenting testimony from 18 potential witnesses, and the Naval Academy presenting testimony from as many as 15 witnesses. In addition, SFFA intends to call four “experts” who presumable will testify as to why it is improper for the Naval Academy to use race in admissions, while the Naval Academy intends to use eight witnesses, who will testify to the opposite.SFFA also intends to offer up to 613 trail exhibits, or pieces of physical evidence, including various documents, at the trial, and the Academy intends to offer up to 209 of such documents in its defense of race-based admissions.You can review all of this in the Parties’ 80-page Joint Proposed Pretrial Order, available here.The trial is going to be a massive undertaking by all hands…Batten down the hatches!
Well, day one of the bench trial is in the books, as reported by Maryland’s Daily Record: Affirmative action trial against Naval Academy begins in Baltimore:
A retired Air Force general testified that racial diversity mattered “not one bit” to the military’s effectiveness on the first day of a trial challenging the U.S. Naval Academy’s admissions policies.The first witness to testify in the case was retired Brig. Gen. Christopher Walker, who was called by the plaintiff, anti-affirmative action group Students For Fair Admissions.“Racial diversity has little to nothing to do with the lethality and effectiveness of our armed forces,” said Walker, who is Black. He said he was always the only Black person or one of the only ones during any assignment, but that it didn’t matter.When he was stationed in Baghdad, for example, “I was concerned with who was a good driver and who was a good shooter.”But an attorney for the Naval Academy argued that diversity in the military is critical to national security, and that Black and Hispanic Midshipmen remain underrepresented.“Diversity is a strategic imperative,” said Joshua Gardner, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice who is representing the Academy.The bench trial, over which U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bennett is presiding, is scheduled to last two weeks but could spill into a third.
Wow, a trial in federal court lasting more than two weeks, all day, every day! What makes this unusual is that federal judges are massively overloaded and generally have a full calendar of events, including various hearings every day—all that is on hold in Judge Bennett’s chambers as he oversees this trial.
When I clerked for now-retired Connecticut federal judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant, she had over 300 active cases she supervised on a daily basis, which explains the usual inherent delay in federal court proceedings. As Judge Bryant, who had long been a Connecticut State Superior Court judge before being appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush, said to me one day (paraphrasing) “the good thing about being in federal court is that you have the same judge for the entire case, the bad thing about being in federal court is that you have the same judge for the entire case,” meaning that when in federal court, you will always have a judge who knows your case, but your hearings and eventual trial might be years into the future. Not so with SFFA v. U.S. Naval Academy.
The Daily Record continues:
In his opening statement, Adam Mortara, arguing on behalf of SFFA, said the academy’s use of race in admissions discriminates against white students.He showed admissions data showing higher acceptance rates for Asian, Black and Hispanic students in the middle deciles of a holistic metric than white students in the same deciles. He also claimed many rejected white candidates had higher SAT scores than Black candidates who were admitted.Whereas he argued that Harvard discriminated against Asian students, he said the Naval Academy has an “Asian preference,” leading to a higher proportion of Asians in the student body than in the American population.He said the college’s race-conscious policy lacks logic and an “end point.”
But the Naval Academy countered Mortara’s argument:
Gardner said the admissions process is not “mechanistic,” and that race is just one thing the school looks at.Gardner said the academy doesn’t have “quotas” or “points” for minority students, doesn’t use “racial balancing,” and doesn’t consider race in isolation. He noted that members of Congress nominate a large majority of the student body, and that they are more likely to nominate white students. The non-white student population has grown over the past 20 years, but Black and Hispanic students remain underrepresented, he said.“Much of the applicant pool is completely outside of the control of the Naval Academy,” Gardner said. “Real progress is being made — we just aren’t there yet.”He said a diverse academy and officer pool lead to better recruitment and retention, as well as more legitimacy both at home and abroad.Regarding Mortara’s argument that a race-conscious policy must end when it achieves a certain goal, Gardner said, “no court has ever held that national security has an end date.”
The trial will likely get even more interesting as the Parties’ experts duke it out and all of the Naval Academy’s admissions data and strategies come to light.
We’ll be here for it.
Some people aren’t happy – LOL:
On the other hand:
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