US seeks dismissal of Naval Academy case after ending race-conscious admissions

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging race-conscious admissions at the U.S. Naval Academy after the elite military school said it changed its policy under Republican President Donald Trump.

The Naval Academy, located in Annapolis, Maryland, disclosed in March that it was no longer considering race or ethnicity in its admissions decisions following directives from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Justice Department and an anti-affirmative action group that had sued the academy, jointly told the court on Monday that the policy change rendered the legal dispute moot.

“This Department is committed to ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity throughout the federal government,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

The filing, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, also asks the court to vacate a federal judge’s ruling last year finding that the prior race-conscious policy was legal.

Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration defended affirmative action at the Naval Academy after the U.S. Supreme Court exempted U.S. military academies from its 2023 ruling barring consideration of race in college admissions.

The Naval Academy had long relied on its prior policy to raise its enrollment of Black, Hispanic and other minorities.

U.S. conservatives and the Trump administration have argued that such policies disadvantage white and certain other applicants and do not improve military readiness.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Caitlin Webber; Editing by Ryan Patrick Jones and Bill Berkrot)