Black women at West Point in spotlight after photo

Their experience at the school is unique

Self-expression is hardly a part of life for cadets at the United States Military Academy.

So it was far from ordinary when 16 black women put their own spin on the traditional graduation photo, hoisting their fists in the air while posing in their dress uniforms, swords at their sides.

A social media firestorm followed. So did an internal inquiry at the school.

Some viewed the cadets’ pose as a gesture of racial solidarity and strength. Others questioned whether it was a statement of support for Black Lives Matter.

West Point officials decided last week that the photo was not politically motivated and no punishment was warranted. Still, that outcome left some black female graduates confused: Why would anyone see controversy in how those 16 women celebrated their experience in the Long Gray Line?

“When I saw it, I said, ‘I wish me and my classmates had taken a picture like that,’” said Shalela Dowdy, a 2012 graduate and a friend of some of the women in the photograph. “But something clicked in my mind that not too many people would be happy about that picture. The fist stands for unity and solidarity, but some people are going to take this the wrong way.”

None of the 16 women would agree to be interviewed for this story. Speaking through black alumnae, they cited a need to focus on their graduation next Saturday, when Vice President Joe Biden will give the commencement address, and life after West Point. For some, that will mean active duty service in the Army. They will become Army officers after leaving the academy.

Mary Tobin, who has mentored other black female cadets since graduating in 2003, said few are inclined to discuss their experiences publicly.

“To be a black woman at West Point is essentially to make a choice going in … that the majority of the time, you can never fully express your womanhood or your blackness,” Tobin said. “We’re told we’re all green. We don’t ever talk about it, because it’s hard enough for everyone at West Point to graduate.”

According to admissions director Col. Deborah McDonald, about 15,000 students apply to West Point each year, and about 9 percent enroll. There were 1,859 black applicants for the incoming freshman class, and 14 percent of them were accepted, McDonald said.

Once enrolled, students are immersed in a campus environment that doesn’t focus on individuality, explained Donald Outing, West Point’s chief diversity officer.

“It’s about adopting the culture and the values of the military as an institution,” Outing said. “The mission requires us to develop soldiers and leaders to function and fight as one team.”

Sakima Brown, a 1998 graduate who was the first person from her hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York, to attend West Point, said making it at the storied military academy meant you had to “shrink your blackness.” When she and the other eight black women in her class saw each other on campus, they would greet each other briefly and move on.

Tobin, who has served as a mentor to some of the women pictured, said she believed all along that their motive was simply to express their joy over graduation.

“You’re looking at each other like, ‘We made it and we did it together,’ and we did it in an environment that still fights the ghosts of discrimination, sexism and homophobia,” said Tobin. “You raise your fist as a sign of victory.”