The US Armed Forces officially desegregated in 1948. Over the following 70 years, the military has made great strides in promoting racial integration. However, we find evidence that, even today, African American soldiers' experience of military service differs significantly from that of other...

Exploiting a database of administrative records for 300,000 members of the US Armed Forces, we find evidence of severe bias in the selection of personnel deployed to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of most concern, we find that African American were far less likely than other service members to...