An attorney for the U.S. Naval Academy said Monday that the elite military school should continue using race and ethnicity in admissions, because it was not where it needed to be in building diversity in its student body and ultimately Navy leadership.

“Real progress is being made,” Joshua Gardner, a Department of Justice attorney, said in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. “We’re just not there yet.”

The Annapolis-based service academy has been sued by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). The group won a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court last year in its case against affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, with the justices rejecting the use of racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions. But the high court specified in its ruling that the military’s service academies may have “distinct” interests in considering race and ethnic background, carving out a potential exemption, which SFFA is challenging.

U.S. officials have argued that a diverse leadership is necessary for cohesion within the armed ranks, and is vital to national security. But an attorney for the Students for Fair Admissions disputed that the use of racial preferences in Naval Academy admissions would necessarily achieve such diversity.

“We’re told it’s all about making Naval officers,” Adam Mortara said in his opening statement in court, noting that just 28% of Naval officers graduated from the Academy, so the impact of affirmative action there would ultimately be minimal.

The admissions group presented its first witness, retired Air Force Brigadier Gen. Christopher S. Walker, to provide boots-on-the-ground support for its argument against racial and ethnic considerations.

Walker, who is Black and graduated from his service’s academy, went through his 40 years in uniform, deploying to multiple combat zones and serving in operational and command positions. He was asked by an SFFA attorney repeatedly about what impact race played in his units’ lethality and effectiveness, or how he chose who to add to a crew.

His answer, repeatedly: “Not one bit.”

Unit cohesion comes from leadership and training rather shared race, Walker said, noting his white underlings “would follow me to the ends of the earth and back,” which he would have done for his white commanders as well.

In questioning Walker, John Robinson, another DOJ attorney, put up exhibit after exhibit of high-ranking military leaders from Colin Powell, the one-time Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Secretary of State, to Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense, who had issued statements, congressional testimony and policies calling diversity within the leadership ranks as mission-critical and imperative.

He also introduced an Air Force survey that showed high rates of service members and officers citing what they saw as bias in opportunities and discipline. Walker said those personnel may have believed it was discrimination, when it was “just a bad commander.”

Gardner made a point that race and ethnicity are among multiple factors that are considered, and only after candidates meet a range of other qualifications.

“It’s not considered in isolation,” he said. “No candidate is admitted solely because of race.”

The Naval Academy’s director of nominations and appointments, Melody Hwang, also testified on the first day of what is expected to be a two-week trial, to reinforce that.

“We conduct,” said Hwang, herself an Academy graduate, “a whole person assessment for each candidate.”