Bruce Latta has been Dean of Admissions for over 20 years. He was a named defendant in a court case against USNA regarding race-based admissions practices.

Latta told the USNA Board of Visitors that race, ethnicity and sex were never considered in determining qualification for admissions. That assertion contradicts Latta’s court deposition and evidence in the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) case against USNA.

In SFFA Latta said,

“If USNA was prohibited from considering race or ethnicity (across all minority groups) as one of many nondeterminative factors, I expect that USNA’s class of admitted midshipmen would become less diverse, as it was before USNA began applying its current policies.”

Court documents show USNA did not use SAT scores in admissions for classes of 2025-2028. Latta’s presentation to the Board of Visitors claimed SAT scores were not used for those classes due to limited availability because of COVID. While that may have been a factor for the class of 2025, SAT testing availability was not impacted by COVID for the classes of 2026-2028.

In 2021, Dean Latta signed onto and promoted a “Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan.” The plan included the following:

• “Intentionally promote diversity in service assignments”
• “Promote membership in affinity groups.”
• “Increase the visibility of current midshipmen and alumni from underrepresented populations by including them in recruiting activities and marketing materials.”
• Review processes “for objectivity and influence of bias and unintended disadvantage to underrepresented populations.”
• “Intentionally strive to increase diversity and representation in academic staff recruitment and recruitment of qualified uniform personnel.”
• “Develop a confidential process for reporting bias incidents.”
• Increase access to “underrepresented populations.”
• “Identify scoring factors that are directly influenced by school resources and familial obligations such as extracurricular activates [sic] and standardize test scores and make recommendations for adjustments.”
• Discussed getting Congressional representatives to nominate “underrepresented minorities”

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