NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A study released Wednesday by the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center shows that members of Congress overall do not nominate high school students consistent with diversity in the general population.
The report “Gatekeepers to Opportunity: Racial Disparities in Congressional Nominations to the Military Service Academies,” examined nearly twenty-five years of nominations data obtained from admissions offices at the West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, and U.S. Air Force Academy. In a press conference, the report’s authors said the findings reveal a drastic gap between the nominations of white students and those of students of color to the academies.
“Black and Hispanic students are distinctly underrepresented, receiving only 6% and 8% of sitting Congressmembers’ nominations, respectively. White students, on the other hand, receive an outsized 74% of nominations. The report ranks members of the current Congress based on their record of promoting students equitably to these prestigious, taxpayer-funded institutions. The rankings, which include each current Member of Congress who has made more than ten nominations since taking office, reveal that 49 Members had not nominated a single Black student as of early 2019.”
Senate members that nominate candidates closest to state demographics
- 1 Patrick Leahy (VT)
- 2 Susan Collins (ME)
- 3 Jon Tester (MT)
- 4 Joe Manchin (WV)
- 5 Angus King (ME)
House members that nominate candidates closest to state demographics
- 1 Ed Case (HI)
- 2 Peter Welch (VT)
- 3 Ron Kind (WI)
- 4 Liz Cheney (WY)
- 5 Brett Guthrie (KY)
Senate members that nominate candidates furthest from state demographics
- 81 Ted Cruz (TX)
- 80 John Cornyn (TX)
- 79 Chris Van Hollen (MD) 283
- 78 Bill Cassidy (LA)
- 77 Roger Wicker (MS)
House members that nominate candidates furthest from state demographics
- 285 Alcee Hastings (FL)
- 284 Linda Sánchez (CA)
- 283 Val Demings (FL)
- 282 Darren Soto (FL)
- 281 Raul Ruiz (CA)
“The congressional nominations system is leaving Black and Latinx students behind,” said Liam Brennan, CVLC’s Executive Director. “Because many general officers graduate from the service academies, the congressional nominations bottleneck ultimately impacts diversity at the highest levels of military leadership. While some Congressmembers are making good-faith efforts to promote students of color, the data point to a clear and urgent need for improvement across Congress and in the academy admissions process at large.”
The authors said the report shows that Members of Congress have never granted more than 13% of their nominations to Hispanic nominees, or more than 11% to Black nominees in any given year. “Although Democrats selected more racially diverse nominees than Republicans, the racial gap cuts across party lines: Over the years 2009-2019, Democrats in Congress collectively allocated 32% of their nominations to students of color, compared to Republicans’ 15%; while Senate Democrats nominated 20% to Republicans’ 13%.”
“The data shows that individual Members of Congress cannot independently address racial and ethnic inequities in the academies,” said Sarah Purtill, law student intern in the Yale Veterans Legal Services Clinic. “Congress and the Department of Defense must implement broad reforms to the nominations process to create more representative student bodies.”
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