Dumbing-Down the U.S. Navy
"Naval Academy Professor Challenges Rising Diversity," ran the headline in the Washington Post.
The impression left was that some sorehead was griping because black and Hispanic kids were finally being admitted.
The Post's opening paragraphs reinforced the impression.
"Of the 1,230 plebes who took the oath of office at the Naval Academy in Annapolis this week, 435 were members of minority groups. It's the most racially diverse class in the nation's 164-year history. Academy leaders say it's a top priority to build a student body that reflects the racial makeup of the Navy and the nation."
Who can be against diversity?
What the Post gets around to is that 22-year English professor Bruce Fleming objects to a race-based admissions program that was apparently used to create a class that is 35 percent minority.
According to Fleming, who once sat on the board of admissions, white applicants must have all As and Bs and test scores of at least 600 on the English and math parts of the SAT even to qualify for a "slate" of 10 applicants, from which only one will be chosen.
However, if you check a box indicating you are African-American, Hispanic, Native American or Asian, writes Fleming, "SAT scores to the mid 500s with quite a few Cs in classes ... typically produces a vote of 'qualified' ... with direct admission to Annapolis. They're in and given a pro forma nomination to make it legit."
If true, the U.S. Naval Academy is running a two-tier admissions system of the kind that kept Jennifer Gratz out of the University of Michigan and was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
"Minority applicants with scores and grades down to the 300s and Cs and Ds also come, though after a year at our taxpayer-supported remedial school, the Naval Academy Preparatory School."
If true, this is a national disgrace. It would represent a U.S. Naval Academy policy of systematic race discrimination, every year, against hundreds of white kids who worked and studied their entire lives for the honor of being appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy and becoming career officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.
If true, what Annapolis has done and is doing is worse—because it is premeditated and programmed racism—than the cowardly act of the New Haven city government in denying Frank Ricci and the white firefighters the promotions they had won in a competitive exam. At least New Haven could say it acted out of fear of being sued.
Yet, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and the Superintendent of the Naval Academy Vice Adm. Jerry Fowler seem quite proud of what they are doing.
Fleming quotes the CNO as saying that "diversity is the number one priority" at the academy. Fowler says he wants Annapolis graduates who "looked like" the fleet, where 42 percent of enlisted personnel are nonwhite.
The diversity midshipmen, says Fleming, who teaches them, are over-represented in "pre-college lower track courses, mandatory tutoring programs and less-challenging majors. Many struggle to master basic concepts."
Thus, though unqualified for college work, these students will be operating the most sophisticated and complex weapons systems ever built—aircraft carriers, Aegis cruisers, nuclear submarines.
"First of all, we're dumbing-down the Naval Academy," charges Fleming. "Second of all, we're dumbing-down the officers corps."
Supporting Fleming's claim, 22 percent of incoming plebes in 2009 had SAT scores in math below 600, compared to 12 percent in 2008.
If the facts are as Fleming states—the academy is accepting dumber and dumber students to get its racial composition right—who can deny that the price of diversity is deliberate acceptance of a less able and competent United States Navy?
"Diversity is our number one priority," Roughhead is quoted. Can one imagine Adm. Chester Nimitz or "Bull" Halsey making an insipid statement like that? Can one imagine what Adm. David "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Farragut would have thought of such a policy?
Whatever happened to the Hyman Rickover-Jimmy Carter motto for the Naval Academy and U.S. Navy: "Why Not the Best?"
Consider. If hundreds of black and Hispanic kids who applied to the academy had been rejected though they had higher grades and SAT scores than those admitted, this story would not have been in the Metro section of the Post. It would have been bannered on page one. And Roughead and Fowler would be explaining to a congressional committee why they should not be relieved of their commands.
Fleming, who still teaches at Annapolis, and has likely had some unpleasant moments since he blew the whistle on his superiors, has shown considerable moral courage.
Hopefully, Congress will show the same moxy and investigate this outage. Hopefully, some of those white kids, cheated out of their life's dream of attending the Naval Academy—while less qualified kids were admitted—will sue the academy, just like Frank Ricci and those gutsy firefighters sued the city of New Haven.
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In the silver lining department, a dumbed down military will have a much more difficult time maintaining the Global Empire.
We would have been better off all along without these service academies. They provided the trained officer corps on both sides that slaughtered 600,000 of our men in uniform (plus hundreds of thousands more civilians) from 1861-1865. Imagine how much less murderous the War Between the States would have been if it had been fought by a bunch of amateurs.
In peacetime, the service academies provide a permanent, professional constituency for war. Remember the parade of West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force Academy generals -- the retired ones on the payrolls of defense companies -- the sitting ones soon to be -- that flitted across our TV screens prior to the March 19, 2003 start of the Iraq War, always bellowing for aggression?
As the Founders warned, a free republic cannot withstand a large, standing military, as our current empire shows.
Pat's about 30 years behind on this one. In Dec. 1979, I was a Spec. 4 at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, studying to be a 98G-RU, a Russian language intercept operator. We graduated four months later. An opening came up for a slot in the White House military communications office, a plum position. Being one of those at the top of my class, I applied.
At a hearing with a review board, the sergeant in charge flat-out told me that I was qualified for the position, but at that time they only were accepting minorities and women because foreign dignitaries sometimes were shown through the White House communications office, and they wanted to advertise American "diversity."
"Thus, though unqualified for college work, these students will be operating the most sophisticated and complex weapons systems ever built—aircraft carriers, Aegis cruisers, nuclear submarines."
Perhaps, then, we can all hope to see these horrible engines of aggression and conquest go dead in the water. However, to quote the Duchess of Grand Fenwick ("The Mouse that Roared"): "I don't want anyone hurt."
Really, Seiler and Higdon, Abott and Costello of the Rockford Chronicles' blogs. You are completely incoherent. There would be no USA now in any form if the USSR prevailed and if there was not a large standing military throughout this time. The military, such as it is, is still the most vital of all government departments and does its job by keeping wacked out dictators worldwide at bay. However since you are not happy with the affirmative action, then first stop attacking conservatives like Pat. Then, you can direct your misplaced energy into political activism that is aimed at neutralizing affirmative action. Perhaps you can start by running for your local school board and you'll see how well you fare against commited leftists! Don't misuse your time by picking on great writers for the Chronicles. You won't convince anyone here that people like Pat are out of touch. We know better.
Perhaps the proper check on expansionist adventurism should not be the dumbing down of our soldiery, but the wising up of our statesmen and citizenry.
The proficiency of the navy will not determine how Congressmen vote on silly wars. It will primarily affect the volume of caskets coming home once those votes are cast.
"jack bailey",
HOW would there be "no USA now in any form if the USSR prevailed and if there was not a large standing military"?
WHAT was the USSR to prevail against?
HOW are "wacked out dictators worldwide" kept at bay?
HOW is the US in danger?
What strikes me most forcefully about Buchanan's article is that he appears totally surprised that something like this method of selection is actually happening at the USNA. The wringing of Buchanan's hands and the gnashing of his teeth are misplaced, for what is happening in Annapolis has been going on for decades. It's just that the policy has become more open and more pronounced, on orders, I would assume, from la Casa Bianca.
Full disclosure: my son graduated from West Point nearly a quarter century ago, and this quota system, for that is what it is, was going on at "the Point" in the 80's.
USNA graduates are well represented in my parish, and they have regaled me with stories about "affirmative action" candidates, but the most severe critic is a former colleague of Prof. Fleming, Bruce, not Tom, who also attends Mass at our church. If anything, he is even more vociferous in his denunciation of the scandals that have been part of the USNA as a result of "affirmtive action" recruitment.
"Affirmative action" destroyed the merit system, which, despite its flaws, was part of what made this country great. It has been replaced by the racial spoils system that demands its due, and generally gets what it wants, even if it means the dumbing down of the military, and the weakening of our national defenses. Sad...but true.
The USN's combined policies of affirmative action and shipboard commingling of the sexes resulted in the unofficial rechristening of one carrier as the "Love Boat" when, during Gulf War I, a high percentage of her female complement wound up in a "family way" during deployment.
To jack bailey: The people of any republic that not only allows, but encourages and orders its women to go to war--particularly to wars of aggression--deserve whatever ill lot God decides to visit upon them.
To quote PCR from his latest Chronicles essay (The Big Whorehouse in the Potomac): "And they think they are the salt of the earth."
#5, Mr. Bailey:
Sir, if you were in the military, I'd like to hear of your experiences of seeing, or not seeing, our racial spoils system in action. I recounted my experience.
You wrote, "Perhaps you can start by running for your local school board and you’ll see how well you fare against commited leftists!"
I spent 30 years in the newspaper business, usually writing editorials, and one of my beats was education. It's long been obvious that local school boards are completely irrelevant because the federal government has totally taken over education. This is mainly because of Republican actions such as:
1) Bush II's No Child Left Behind Act centralization.
2) Bush I's Goals 2000 centralization scheme.
3) Reagan breaking his promise to abolish DeEd.
4) Earlier, numerous rulings by the Supreme Court of Earl Warren, another Republican.
5) The imposition of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare by another Republican, Eisenhower. Ike also panicked after Sputnik and advanced federal funding of science education, another centralization effort that ended up dumbing down the schools even more than they already were under local control.
As I've said before, if Republicans didn't exist, Democrats would have to invent them.
#5, Mr. Bailey:
By the way, I've been a big supporter of Pat since I first heard of him probably in the early 1970s when I was a young conservative, back when there was a real conservative movement (instead of its "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" replacement, the Trotskyite/Neocon movement), and have read most of his books. His arguments helped convince me to switch my position and oppose open immigration.
He's our best columnist writing today. And you always know what, agree or disagree, with Pat you're always getting his authentic opinion, not some party line handed down by Buckley or Lowry.
I even took the humiliating step of joining the Republican Party in 1992 and 1996 to vote for him in the primaries. I also joined the Reform Party in 2000 for the same reason.
But do I have to have *exactly* the same position on things as he has, especially if my life experience has given me a different perspective?
Mr. Seiler. Things are getting exponentially worse everyday and if you care, you should take those that are causing it heads-on. That means that cast of a hundred or so braindamaged Democrats that are in the key positions right now. If you are not willing to do so, you are part of the problem because themes that you are dwelling on are only giving oxygen to those whose aim is to truly turn this place into a socialist utopia. We should be discussing the demented bastards that are in charge now as we speak and getting in their faces.
Mr. Higdon. All our beefs are well known. However the target of our anger right know should be solely the current powerbrokers. This is the urgency that we are faced with.
#12, Mr. Bailey. I don't think the "cast of a hundred or so" Democrats are "braindamaged," just evil. And it's hard for me to see how things have changed from just three years when a "cast of a hundred or so" Republicans was running everything. The GOP gave us the unconstitutional wars, assaults on the Bill of Rights, inflation, deficits, debt, and depression. Democrats are continuing all that.
What to do? First, know what's going on. For one thing, except for Ron Paul, the national Republicans are against our ancient freedoms and rights. How many want to bring all the troops home from the 130 countries they occupy and repeal the obscenely named USA PATRIOT Act? (At the local level, some Republicans may be decent, and some local Democrats may be decent, too; but almost all seem to be corrupted once they go to the Imperial City.)
Second, do what you can. For example, forget "reforming" the government schools and instead homeschool your kids, or send them to a private or parochial school (make sure it's not just an expensive clone of the government schools). If you have some money, start such schools or support them. Give people Chronicles subscriptions.
I'm not throwing stones at anyone here. Just tossing out some ideas. This is a difficult time.
Mr.Baily,
It is a sad day when forces must retreat in the face of overwhelming odds especially when one is of the choleric and fighting temperment like yourself. But when one understands that retreat is a tactical maneuver (an attack in a different direction) then one can see it is not the same as surrender. No one around a Chronicles blog is reluctant to draw swords and fight to the death but it is reckless disregard and stupid to think that a National Republican alliance is anything but a feint to draw us into the same old trap of duopoly we have suffered for the last hundred years.
I enlisted in the US Navy way back in 1972 and stayed in for 4 years to get the GI Bill to pay for college. Unqualified officers were the ones who used government employment as their career path because the smart ones moved on to positions in private industry after serving 5 years in uniform. The military is in fact run by experienced NCOs, and the brighter officers take a hands-off approach by letting them motivate the men, and only take the blame when things don't go well.
Unfortunately, many NCOs now have a difficult time motivating the enlisted minorities, and must wheedle, bribe and cajole the men or else be had up on charges of racial insensitivity -- something that started during my enlistment. No wonder the New World Order spends billions on outfits like Blackwater to undertake the truly dirty business of war.
Diversity is probably as much to blame for our Vietnam humiliation as congressional micro-management.
#5 Jack Bailey, well said.
So what else is new?
A few years ago, I was told by a former Navy corpsman who had served in the early 70's that there had been a massive effort to integrate the Navy during the late 60's , and the result was that for all intents and purposes, there was no functioning navy for several years, roughly from 1970-74. The ships were there, the men were there, but it was no effective force. He said that the top brass eventually realised how bad things had gotten and did enough of a reverse on the policy to allow the Navy to become effective again. This time around, there will be no such reverse.
It's only a matter of time before a politically correct 'military' receives a major defeat in some silly intervention or provoked war overseas, and the empire will be on the ropes.