Simone Askew of Fairfax, Virginia, was named First Captain of the Corps of Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for the 2017-18 academic year. She is the first African American woman to hold this position since the academy’s founding in 1802.
The National Academy of Engineering recently announced the election of 84 new members. The academy does not disclose the racial makeup of its membership, but it appears that there are three Black engineers among the 84 new members.
A group of 16 Black women students set to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point came under criticism by posting a photograph of the group with raised fists.
In 1932 Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the son of an Army officer, was admitted to West Point. He was “silenced” or shunned by his classmates for four years. No cadets, faculty or staff members befriended or spoke to him except on an official basis.
The award is presented by the U.S. Military Academy’s Association of Graduates to individuals who exemplify West Point’s motto, “Duty, Honor, Country.” Dr. Rice, a former U.S. secretary of state, is now a professor at Stanford University.
Nationwide, the Black student college graduation rate is about 20 percentage points lower than the rate for White students. But at the U.S. service academies the racial gap is much lower.
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