Contrary to what some people seem to think, the U.S. Military does not engage in race/gender preferences.

Recently Gail Buckley (Author of American patriots: The Story of Black Soldiers in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm) wrote an article entitled “Black Soldiers OK, Why Not Students” as a defense of affirmative action’s segregated standards.

The problem with Ms. Buckley’s article is that it was not only misleading, but based on a false assumption. The U.S. Military does NOT engage in segregated standards for various racial and ethnic groups.

The Military does have something very close to an open-admission program for basic recruits, akin to admitting every high school graduate into two-year Community Colleges, which already exists throughout America. Anyone with a High School education or a GED can enlist in the U.S. Military, but once enlisted a battery of written exams gives them a profile of the applicant’s abilities and interests and they are assigned positions and eventually promoted according to their aptitudes.

The Military does something that most institutions of higher learning and most employers would do well to follow – it reserves its elite positions for the highest achievers. There are no open admissions or preference programs for pilots or Special Forces personnel. As a result, of the Air Force’s 12,000 pilots, 245, or about 2%, are black. In the Navy, only 2.5% of the pilots are black. Of the Army’s enlisted Green Berets only 196 of the Army’s 4,278 enlisted Green Berets - fewer than 5% - are black.

The U.S. Military knows what everyone with any common sense knows, that merit is too vital a parameter to be subordinated to “diversity concerns.” Moreover, it's insulting to those minorities who've become pilots and Special Forces personnel, as well as those who will earn those positions, to suggest that some ethnic groups need preferential policies in order to compete with others.

At any rate, there is nothing innately “troubling” about such numbers, any more than the fact that the NBA is nearly three-quarters black can be considered “troubling.” Disparate outcomes are only “troubling” in light of obvious and intentional discrimination. The fact that different groups of people have differing interests, abilities and that our socio-economic background often shape our interests cannot be considered “deliberately discriminatory.”

The fact that only 2.5% of the Navy’s pilots are black is merely a snapshot in time. That number is not fixed because the interest and abilities of the prospective applicants is not fixed. It is very possible that that number may change over time, just as the number of blacks in the NBA may change as the interests and abilities of other groups change – foreign players from Europe and China are now changing the face of the NBA.

The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has the same sort of “troubling” numbers, with approximately 95% of its workforce being white and male, but so long as the entrance exam is the same test for everyone, and all are permitted to take the exam, no deliberate discrimination can be proven. That’s why the current system of race and gender preferences rests upon the boggy ground of “disparate impact,” but disparate impact or differing outcomes does not prove intentional discrimination and only deliberate discrimination demands a remedy.

Contrary to Gail Buckley’s view, there is nothing “fair” about our current form of affirmative action that gives preferences to certain ethnic groups, by valuing diversity over strict merit. The U.S. Military sees that and thankfully so does the current administration.