Judge Strikes Down Elite Virginia High School’s Admissions Rules
Thomas Jefferson High School eliminated standardized tests and made other changes to attract more Black and Hispanic students. A judge declared the policy unfair to Asian Americans.
By Campbell Robertson and Stephanie Saul
Feb. 25, 2022
A federal judge on Friday struck down changes that had been made to the admissions process at a magnet school in Virginia that is one of the most prestigious high schools in the country, saying that the new rules left Asian American students “disproportionately deprived of a level playing field.”
The school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as T.J., which sits just outside of Washington, D.C., in Fairfax County, Va., had adopted the admissions protocols in late 2020 with the aim of diversifying the student body. The new rules did not mention race but eliminated a standardized testing requirement and specifically guaranteed eligibility to top students at middle schools that had sent few students to T.J. in the past.
After the rules went into effect, the percentages of Black and Hispanic students in the incoming class more than tripled, while the number of Asian American students fell from 73 percent to 54 percent, the lowest share in years. ... In changing the admissions process, school officials “expressed their desire to remake T.J. admissions because they were dissatisfied with the racial composition of the school,” Judge Claude M. Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia wrote in his decision. ... “A means to accomplish their goal of achieving racial balance,” he wrote, “was to decrease enrollment of the only racial group ‘overrepresented’ at T.J. — Asian Americans. The board employed proxies that disproportionately burden Asian American students.”
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The plaintiff in the suit was an organization called
Coalition for TJ, which includes some Asian American parents of prospective TJ applicants and was formed in August 2020 to oppose changes to the admissions process. ... “We hope this ruling sends the message that government cannot choose who receives the opportunity to attend public schools based on race or ethnicity,” Erin Wilcox, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the coalition, said in a statement. The foundation, a 49-year-old conservative legal group based in California, has also filed lawsuits in
New York and Maryland.
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