An Unusual Argument for Affirmative Action: National Security

And that could, in turn, further the recruitment and retention challenges that the military currently faces, said Katherine Kuzminski, the director of the Center for New American Security’s Military, Veterans & Society program. “Military service is a closed profession. The representation that you have at the beginning of a career is only whittled down from there. There’s no way to access new talent,” Kuzminski said. “And when we look at our general officer corps, they tend to be in service up to 35 or 40 years. So the decisions that are made today about who was allowed in the service academies, or in ROTC or who were actively pursuing, that lays out the leadership that we’re looking at in 2063.”

And for diverse candidates coming into the military, seeing only white men in the officer corps could be disheartening, Kuzminski added.“It might put their thumb on the scales in terms of getting out of the military,” she said.

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