What Percentage Of West Point Graduates Stay In The Military – New report exposes deep-rooted racism plaguing US military academies Students from US military academies share their experiences of racism at prestigious institutions
West Point graduates arrive for the West Point 2021 Commencement Ceremony at Michie Stadium on May 22, 2021 in West Point, New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Contents
- What Percentage Of West Point Graduates Stay In The Military
- New Report Reveals The Deep Rooted Racism Plaguing U.s. Military Academies
- Will West Point Cadets Be Expelled?
- West Point And Its Cadets Are Not Campaign Props
- Til The Person Who Graduates Last In His Class During The United States Military Academy At West Point Graduation Ceremony Each Year Is Called
- Trump Speaks At West Point Graduation Amid Tensions With Military Leaders
- Facts: The United States Military Academy At West Point
- Cooper Graduates From West Point
- The U.s. Military Academy At West Point, N.y.
- As It Sets Diversity Record, West Point Quietly Graduates 1,000th Jewish Student
What Percentage Of West Point Graduates Stay In The Military
Over the past 70 years, the criteria for the United States military academies have undergone drastic policy changes to improve diversity. Now, many military academies open their doors to both men and women of different ethnicities, religions and sexual orientations.
New Report Reveals The Deep Rooted Racism Plaguing U.s. Military Academies
But racism remains an issue in the officer corps of the United States’ services – the academies of the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Coast Guard and US Merchant Navy, according to the Associated Press .
In short, all military academy cadets wearing the same uniforms are still not treated equally. Speaking to the AP, several members of the military have recounted their experiences at military academies across the United States. Carlton Shelley II, a football recruit who entered West Point Academy in 2009, exposed the stark difference in his treatment on and off the field.
“On the field, he described the team as a ‘brotherhood,’ where the color of his skin never affected how he was treated,” reports AP News. “But off the field, he said, so often he and other black classmates were treated like the stereotype of the angry black man — an experience that brought him to tears at the time.”
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Will West Point Cadets Be Expelled?
“I repeatedly got in trouble or got corrected for infractions that weren’t really infractions,” Shelley said. “It was a very deliberate choice to dig and push certain people compared to other cadets — white cadets.”
Shelley also expressed concern about the graduation rate among black students. While he noted that the academies have improved in terms of racial diversity, he also suggested that there is still room for improvement in terms of retaining and supporting students of color. Rank disparities also remain issues for service members of color.
Only 6% of Army, Air Force and Navy academy nominations made by current members of Congress went to black candidates, even though 15% of the 18- to 24-year-old population is black, according to a report about service academies published in March by the Connecticut Veterans Law Center. 8 percent of congressional nominations went to Hispanic students, although they make up 22 percent of young adults, the report said. … Graduation rates between racial groups at the Navy and Coast Guard academies continued to show gaps, according to data provided to the AP. At the Naval Academy, for example, black midshipmen still had the lowest graduation rate of any racial group at 74 percent, compared to a school-wide rate of 87 percent in 2020. And the Academy’s 65 percent black graduation rate of the Coast Guard between 2011 and 2020 lagged about 20 percentage points behind other racial groups.
Xavier Bruce, a 1999 graduate of the Air Force Academy, also shed light on the challenges he faced amid his promotion to lieutenant colonel in his 24 years of service. “We just feel it, we feel the energy behind it, and it just eats at us,” he said. Among the more than 200 students in the graduating class of 2019, 34 were black women, the largest number of African-American graduates in the academy’s history.
West Point And Its Cadets Are Not Campaign Props
African-American female students celebrate at the end of commencement ceremonies at West Point on Saturday.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Tiffany Welch-Baker told NBC’s “Nightly News” this week that on her journey to graduating from the military academy, she sometimes doubted herself.
“There are moments here where you feel, ‘Oh, do I deserve it? Do I deserve to be here?” he said.
Bria Erron said there were times at school when she was the only woman of color, or woman of any race, in a class. Even with the increase, black women made up less than 4 percent of this year’s graduating class.
Til The Person Who Graduates Last In His Class During The United States Military Academy At West Point Graduation Ceremony Each Year Is Called
A photo of the women in uniform posing on the steps of the US Military Academy went viral on social media last week, sparking a wave of congratulatory messages.
“Nearly two years ago, West Point grad Simone Askew became the first black female leader of the Cadet Corps. This month, West Point will graduate the largest class of Black women in its history. Don’t let anyone tell you that it represents” doesn’t matter,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. tweeted.
“Congratulations on entering the next big chapter of your life,” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. was posted. “I know you’re just getting started.”
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at Saturday’s ceremony, calling the more than 980 graduates “the best of the best.”
Trump Speaks At West Point Graduation Amid Tensions With Military Leaders
Pence also told the class that as they accept “the mantle of leadership” their leader, President Donald Trump, “will always have your back.”
“My hope when young black girls see these photos is that no matter what life throws at you, you have the ability and the fortitude to be a force to be reckoned with,” Welch-Baker told Because of Them We Can earlier. this month. WASHINGTON — When President Trump took the stage Saturday to deliver the commencement address at West Point, one of the new Army officers he addressed was an Indian-American woman who broke a barrier as old as the 218-year-old military academy.
The woman, Anmol Narang, 23, a recent lieutenant colonel, became the first Sikh observer to graduate from the United States Military Academy, a milestone that comes as racism appears to be on the rise in the military ranks and as Sikhs continue to face discrimination in some of its branches.
With the exception of the Army and Air Force, the military largely prohibits its members from serving with turbans, unkempt hair or beards — all of which are articles of faith for Sikhs.
Facts: The United States Military Academy At West Point
Lt. Narang, who grew up in Roswell, Ga., said military service has always been in her blood. “My grandfather was in the Indian Army,” she said in an interview. “It’s always been a big part of my life and something I’ve always been interested in.”
She recalled sending her application to West Point from a hotel in Hawaii during her high school years. He had just visited the Pearl Harbor National Memorial and felt inspired to serve.
While Lieutenant Narang is the first observant Sikh to graduate from the academy, she is not the first Sikh student to do so.
During his time as a cadet at West Point, Simratpal Singh cut his hair short and kept his beard trimmed. This caused him “significant embarrassment,” according to a lawsuit he filed against the Defense Department in 2016, after he had become an Army captain. He was looking for a place to stay so he could practice his religion and serve in the army.
Cooper Graduates From West Point
Captain Singh was eventually given permission to serve wearing a turban and beard, a victory that paved the way for future Sikh service members to receive religious exemptions.
West Point has worked to enroll more minority recruits — last year’s graduating class was the most diverse ever and included the largest number of black women in the academy’s history — but remains predominantly white and male.
“Diversity should never be an afterthought,” West Point spokeswoman Katie Felder said in a statement. “It has to be a thoughtful and deliberate approach to ensure we get the right talent and the right mix of talent to represent the nation we’re sworn to defend.”
About 1,100 cadets are expected to receive their degrees on Saturday. Lt. Narang is one of nearly 230 women in the graduating class of 2020, which is 12 percent African American, 9 percent Asian, 9 percent Hispanic and less than 1 percent Native American.
The U.s. Military Academy At West Point, N.y.
Despite being a minority within a minority on campus, Lt. Narang said she did not feel isolated as a student there. In some ways, she said, it was easier to fit in as a Sikh student than if she were a man.
Two male Sikh apprentices are behind Lt. Narang and received religious accommodations from the academy to grow facial hair and wear turbans. The Army’s standard for women’s hair says that a bun should be no larger than 3.5 inches in diameter. For Lt. Narang, whose hair hangs to her knees, it took some practice to nail a bun tight enough to meet the requirement, but she needed no religious accommodation.
“On the second day of basic training, the chaplain came up to me as he was going around looking at religious preferences and said, ‘You’ve been ‘disclosed’ for a religious preference,” Lt. Narang said. “He asked me, ‘You have no religious faith?’ I said, “That is because Sikhism was not on the list for me to include.”
Like the rest of her graduating class, Lt. Narang had to return to campus two weeks before the ceremony to self-quarantine before Mr. Trump’s speech. When asked about her
As It Sets Diversity Record, West Point Quietly Graduates 1,000th Jewish Student
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