Legislation aiming to take a closer look at potential demographic disparities among those applying for and being nominated for military academies is underway, recently passing in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans
The legislation – sponsored by U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans of Pennsylvania – is an amendment in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, one of Congress’s annual must-pass bills. Evans said that the amendment did not face any opposition.
The amendment expands on the PANORAMA Act – included in a prior NDAA – which created an online portal for congressional nominations to military service academies that allowed applicants to self-identify gender, race, and ethnicity,
“The Evans amendment would expand the reporting requirements to direct the Department of Defense to also identify and specify any disparities in these demographic categories and provide assessments on why these disparities may exist within the application and nominating process,” said Ben Turner, a spokesman for Evans. “The goal is to get the Defense Department on the record identifying that the lack of diverse applicants and nominees to the academies exists and identify issues that could cause these disparities for Congress to address through further action.”
Having this information allows for the addressing of disparity issues, Evans said, adding that there was indeed a gap.
2019 cadet diversity information from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point show that cadet gender is 77% male and 23% female. As for ethnicity, the same data showed that cadet demographics were 63% white, 12% Black or African American, 10% Hispanic, 8% Asian, and 1% American Indian and Alaska native.
"There's huge opportunities in the military academies,” Evans said. “We want to make sure that our academies are reflective of the various aspects of our society. In the day and age we live, we want to ensure it is reflective of our society. And you can only do that again by being aware, by having this information gathering."
