So, maybe it is a place for social policy experimentation.

There was a really perplexing quirk in the Supreme Court's decision regarding affirmative action. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts offered a carve-out for the Armed Services academies. In other words, West Point, Annapolis, et al. can use race as a criteria by which they determine who to admit. The rationale? National defense necessitates this flexibility given the public good served by an officer corps who reflects the racial diversity of the Armed Services' enlisted ranks. 

I was a pretty politically engaged kid in the 1990s. Considered myself a conservative, too. A significant flashpoint I remember from 1990s politics was the norm of "don't ask don't tell" in the armed forces. Could gays actively serve. I guess we weren't ready for that 30 years ago, leaving us with that awkward compromise. The Clinton administration took heat from both the right and the left for the policy. On the right, though, critics often justified their views by saying the military isn't the place for experimenting on social policy. Interesting. I guess in 2023 our Supreme Court has decided that it can still be a lab for affirmative action. 

As I've written earlier, I'm of two minds about the Supreme Court's decision banning affirmative action. I guess I'm half-empty on their decision. And it's tempting for me to rail against the double-standard of saying private institutions like Harvard cannot do x but the government through the armed service academies can. But I'm more interested in how what the court did is consistent with how we often use the armed forces to engage in social policy experimentation. 

There was significant debate about how to properly compensate the veterans of the Continental Army after the Revolutionary War concluded. Many at that time advocated for land grants to these men honoring their service. The implications for what this could have meant regarding democratization of property ownership are immense. 

In the American Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation turned the Army into a giant force of liberation. It clearly offered the enslaved a chance to serve in the Army, thus hinting at citizenship for these men. In the final set of public remarks Lincoln offered, he suggested support for giving black veterans the right to vote. And after the war was over, scores of black men continued to serve in the army. 

Even before the Emancipation Proclamation the armed forces of the Civil War were a liberating force. In fact, the Army's experience in the field prompted consideration of how to put "contraband" to use in the war effort, introducing all sorts of messy issues regarding those contraband soldiers' dependents. 

The World War II era offered tremendous examples of how the Armed Forces could be a laboratory for social policy experimentation. Educating troops on topics as complex as digging adequate cover, preventing the spread of venereal disease, and insuring loved ones became important jobs for the Army and Navy. And they often turned to cartoon studios to help craft the right messaging. 

As the war wound down, Congress created the GI Bill offering ways to open education and entrepreneurial opportunities to veterans. It was an unprecedented elevation of human capital, and it stuck. Nearly eighty years after World War II's end the GI Bill continues to offer access to education as a reward for serving our nation. Of course President Truman ordered the integration of the Armed Forces in 1948. This took place years before desegregation had widely occurred in American society. The federal government's work of formally desegregating then addressing de facto segregation began with the Armed Forces. 

Our Armed Forces continue to offer immigrants looking for a chance to be American an opportunity to serve the country the have adopted. There isn't an explicit promise of citizenship to these men and women, but the implicit promise is quite compelling. 

And now today the Supreme Court says there's such compelling interest to have our officers' reflect the diversity of the enlisted ranks that our service academies (and I would imagine our ROTC programs) can engage in a practice deemed unconstitutional elsewhere. It's hard to think of a more compelling piece of evidence that our work at securing equal protection under the laws hasn't been completed. And it seems like the military will remain one place that racial minorities can get access that might be denied elsewhere.   

Against this backdrop we've had the spectacle of a military appropriations bill and the approval of scores of promotions held up by culture war politics. A few holdouts in the House and Senate want to make a point about access to abortion, access to medical services for transgender Americans, and prohibitions on diversity training. I guess there are more who realize the importance of this social laboratory than they care to admit.