Students for Fair Admissions Prevails in Lawsuit Challenging Coast Guard’s Race-Based Officer Program

For Immediate Release:
May 28, 2026

Contact:
Edward Blum
edwardjayblum@gmail.com
703-505-1922

(Fort Worth, Texas) – Today, Students for Fair Admissions (“SFFA”) announces that it has prevailed in its federal lawsuit challenging the United States Coast Guard’s racially discriminatory College Student Pre-Commissioning Initiative (“CSPI”) program.

The Joint Motion for Entry of Judgement is attached.

The lawsuit challenged provisions of federal law that restricted eligibility for the Coast Guard’s officer training program to students attending certain race-based institutions, including “Hispanic-serving institutions” and other colleges defined by the racial composition of their student bodies.

The United States Department of Justice informed Congress and the federal court that it would no longer defend the program’s racial quotas because they violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. The parties subsequently filed a joint motion requesting judgment in favor of SFFA.

The proposed judgment declares the race- and ethnicity-based eligibility provisions unconstitutional and removes them from the law, while permitting the Coast Guard’s officer training program to continue using a race-neutral basis.

The Coast Guard case represents another important application of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which reaffirmed the constitutional principle that racial classifications by government institutions are inherently suspect and subject to the strictest scrutiny.

SFFA’s lawsuit challenged the Coast Guard program on behalf of members who were qualified and prepared to apply for the CSPI program but were excluded because they did not attend institutions selected on the basis of racial demographics.

The judgment preserves the Coast Guard’s ability to continue operating the CSPI program, but future selections must proceed without unconstitutional racial preferences or quotas.

Edward Blum, president of SFFA said, “This is a major victory for equal treatment under the law. The federal government has now formally acknowledged that race-based eligibility standards and racial quotas are unconstitutional and indefensible.”

Blum added. “Whether in college admissions, scholarships, corporate programs, or federal officer-training initiatives, Americans must be treated as individuals, not as representatives of racial groups.”