Thread by @veryanonanon

We saw @myth_pilot 's recent thread on Blacks in the US Army. This is an important topic because it shows the effects of the Diversity agenda .

Here's another 🧵 on diversity on the Army -specifically the United States Military Academy at West Point, the leading single source of Commissioned Army officers for the US, and the core of the Army officer corps ethos and mythos.

We at usmadata dot com have data not seen publicly anywhere else for any schools. The findings are shocking if you aren't already familiar to them.

Let's dive in:

West Point has been using Diversity to drive admissions decisions for years and years now. In the words of Col Deborah MacDonald, former head of admissions, in her brief in SSFA vs West Point:

"In 2013, based on the continued underrepresentation of previously excluded groups in the Army’s officer corps, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Raymond T. Odierno, directed West Point to increase diversity among its cadets, and specifically to increase the number of African American and women cadets. 84. As the Director of Admissions, I worked to implement this directive, in conjunction with broader Department of Defense (DoD) diversity goals."

How does this show up?

In our research at usmadata dot com, using FOIA (at least while West Point still responded!), in 2018 we got Admissions data files on classes of 2000-2020, including: anonymized applicant (and cadet, if they attended) profiles with: Sex, race, SAT and ACT score, high school sports, West Point sports, extracurriculars, branching data, separations, and other key information.

This meant we could analyze the profiles of applicants and cadets by race and sex. Here are the highlights.

First, Blacks (and to a lesser extent Hispanics) have been increasing in the Corps of Cadets representation: Red is Black representation.

This work (usmadata.com/2018/06/10/on-… ) was also cited in the Veterans for Fairness and Merit amicus brief to SFFA in SFFA v Harvard and UNC. (supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/2…) (RIP, X algo boost...)

Blacks (and to lesser extent Hispanics) have much lower test scores than White and Asian candidates and cadets.

Black Males attend(ed) at 200% rates with -70 point scores compared to White Male cohorts. BFemales attended at close to 300% of White Female comparables with -80 point scores.

Despite an advantage in admissions, Blacks did not perform as well in CQPA, or the Cumulative Quality Point Average at West Point - the overall weighted Academic, Military, and Physical performance measurement that USMA uses:
(yes these are Averages, not profiles, there are outliers)

And it's not just in Test Scores. Overall qualifications of the lower quintiles of Cadet Classes were much lower - in large part because of diversity initiatives - than they had to be. USMA admitted a lot of cadets with qualifications well below other applicants.

usmadata.com/2022/03/29/usm…

This by the way is very close to projections of what would happen at other institutions that relaxed their Diversity admissions requirements in favor merit-based admissions--as is supposed to happen post-SFFA v Harvard.

Blacks, once admitted, also tend to have problems staying at West Point.

They drop out at 150% of White separations and about 180% of Asian candidates, driven by Academic separations (also highest Honor separations). Hispanics also tend to separate at higher rates than Whites, but at more moderate deltas in each category.

How did the Blacks thus admitted and who made it through West Point perform in the Army?

Here are attrition stats over time courtesy of the Institute for Defense analysis (underlying table not available and no response when we emailed the study owners).

Blacks tend to stay in at decreasing rates over time compared to Whites.

And Black cadets tend to go into non-combat arms at higher rates than Whites, further exacerbating the "problem" of few Black general officers and combat arms leaders (this is just West Point, not ROTC). Which in turn serves as "proof" that more Diversity efforts are needed.
usmadata.com/2023/09/07/ret…

In summary, we see that:

USMA was (probably still is) deliberately pursuing class composition goals for minorities by, in addition to minority recruitment, employing race-based admissions strategies.

Data indicate that the race-based practices include, where Admissions has complete discretion in selecting which candidates will be offered admission, extending preferences to minority candidates who, on average, have significantly lower SAT scores and qualifications than non-minority candidates who have higher SAT scores.

To achieve what are called its “class composition goals” for minorities, and despite Academy officials and others saying otherwise, USMA is admitting marginally qualified candidates with a known and higher probability of failure.

The marginally qualified candidates are failing by the Academy’s own metrics, and more marginal performers are graduating into the Army.

The marginally qualified candidates consume resources to try to get to graduation, and take up slots that other, available, better qualified individuals could have filled.

In addition to weakening the Army vis a vis opportunity cost, the failures take up years of kids’ lives that could have been more productive had they gone somewhere that was a better fit.

There are real and tangible costs to pursuing the diversity strategy, and no supporting and falsifiable argument offered for pursuing the strategy.

How does this overlooking of talent help the Army win wars? It's an unfounded assertion, and one that our Army will pay the price for.