Student Attitudes Toward Campus Diversity at the U.S. Naval Academy: Evidence From Conjoint Survey Experiments

• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X18824665
• Author: John Polga-Hecimovich,John M. Carey,Yusaku Horiuchi
• Date: 01 April 2021
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Student Attitudes

Toward Campus

Diversity at the U.S.

Naval Academy:

Evidence From Conjoint

Survey Experiments

John Polga-Hecimovich

1

, John M. Carey

2

and Yusaku Horiuchi

2

Abstract

Although the value of diversity—in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-

economic status—to the U.S. military has been subject to debate, preferences for

diversity at educational institutions for the military officers are rarely examined

systematically. To address this, we investigate whether midshipmen at the U.S. Naval

Academy favor prioritizing diversity in student admissions and faculty recruitment

using conjoint analysis, a method suited for estimating attitudes on sensitive and

politicized issues. The results show strong preferences in favor of applicants from

disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and moderate but still positive pre-

ferences for members of traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in both

admissions and faculty recruitment. Midshipmen’s preferences with respect to

gender are, however, less straightforward. In particular, we find a strong negative

preference against gender nonbinary applicants and candidates. Our findings suggest

that midshipmen’s attitudes reflect both resolved and unresolved debates that

resonate throughout the armed forces.

1

U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA

2

Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

Corresponding Author:

John Polga-Hecimovich, U.S. Naval Academy, 121 Blake Road, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA.

Email: polgahec@usna.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2021, Vol. 47(2) 386-409

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X18824665

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Keywords

campus climate, diversity, inclusion, gender, faculty recruitment, student admissions,

Naval Academy, service academies

The Juvenal period of life, when friendships are formed, and habits established that will

stick by one; the Youth, or young men from different parts of the United States would

be assembled together, and would by degrees discover that there was not that cause for

those jealousies and pre judices which one part of the Union had imbibed again st

another part ...What, but the mixing of people from different parts of the United States

during the War rubbed off these impressions? A century in the ordinary intercourse,

would not have accomplished what the Seven years association in Arms did.

—Letter from President George Washington to Alexander Hamilton

Demographic diversity is at the center of campus debates around the country. The

issue is especially resonant for the military service academies because the academies

are the principal educational institutions for the officers who lead military units, and

the diversity of the officer corps, in turn, is widely held to affect the mission readi-

ness of the military as a whole. The value of diversity to the U.S. military, however,

is by no means a new topic for debate. In his letter to Hamilton, George Washington

was preoccupied with regional divides rather than racial/ethnic or gender ones, but

his logic with regard to the benefits of diversity within the military still resonates

(September 1, 1796; Ellis, 2000, pp. 960, 961).

With this issue and its historical resonance in mind, we examine the following

questions: Do midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy (hereafter, USNA or Naval

Academy) favor the prioritization of diversity—in terms of race, ethnicity, gender,

and socioeconomic status—in student admissions and faculty recruitment? And do

preferences on these matters differ across midshipmen by race, ethnicity, gender,

socioeconomic status, and political partisanship? Despite their importance, we do

not yet have empirically credible answers to these questions in part because of the

methodological challenges in eliciting honest opinions on hot-button issues. To

address this, we use fully randomized conjoint analysis (Hainmueller, Hopkins, &

Yamamoto, 2014) with a sample of midshipmen at USNA.

We are interested in the attitudes of midshipmen on these matters because they

are the largest group of stakeholders at USNA. Future admitted students will become

their peers and future fellow officers. Future faculty will serve as their instructors,

mentors, and evaluators. Moreover, social change at USNA is a microcosm of

broader social change and upheaval in the military at large (Bodnar 1999), and an

understanding of midshipmen’s attitudes should help inform those of military men

and women beyond Annapolis.

We are also interested in student attitudes on the value of campus diversity

because they are prominent in the arguments of diversity critics from both the left

and the right. Berrey (2015, pp. 72, 73) argues that race-conscious admission

Polga-Hecimovich et al. 387