Naval Academy admits most diverse class

ANNAPOLIS, Md., July 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. Naval Academy has admitted a freshman class with the highest percentage of minorities in its history, 435 out of 1,230 plebes.

New students were sworn in this week, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The academy, in Annapolis, Md., has doubled the number of black, Hispanic and Asian-American students in the past decade. But one member of the faculty accuses the academy of diluting its standards to achieve diversity.

In an op-ed piece in The Capital, the daily newspaper in Annapolis, Bruce Fleming, a tenured English professor, said the academy has one admissions system for white students and another for minorities.

"First of all, we're dumbing down the Naval Academy," Fleming told the Post. "Second of all, we're dumbing down the officer corps."

Academy officials say they admitted about the same percentages of black, Hispanic and white applicants -- less than 10 percent -- and all were near the top of their high school classes. In fact, while average SAT scores have gone down, 76 percent of the academy class of 2013 were in the top fifth of their high school class, about the same as 10 years ago, officials said.