Federal court upholds race-based admissions at elite school

A federal appeals court panel upheld the admissions practices at an elite public high school in Northern Virginia Tuesday, turning aside claims that officials were discriminating against Asian-American students.

In a split vote, the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an earlier district court ruling that held the Fairfax County School Board had implemented an unconstitutional admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a highly selective magnet school in Alexandria.

Coalition for TJ, a parents group that initiated the lawsuit in 2021, has argued the policy disproportionately rejected Asian-American applicants, who comprise more than 70% of the student body, by eliminating standardized tests for the sake of more racially diverse admissions.

“After thorough consideration of the record and the appellate contentions, we are satisfied that the challenged admissions policy does not disparately impact Asian American students and that the Coalition cannot establish that the Board adopted its race-neutral policy with any discriminatory intent,” Judge Robert B. King, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote for the majority.

The ruling conceded that Thomas Jefferson High accepted fewer Asian students after the policy was adopted in 2020, but said the high school got more “low-income Asian American admittees” and that many applicants came from “historically underrepresented” middle schools as a result.

King maintained that the policy thus had no “disparate impact on Asian American students” at Thomas Jefferson, since they remain the largest racial group to gain admittance.

“[W]hile slightly less than half of TJ’s applicants in 2021 identified as Asian American (specifically 48.59%), well over half of the offers extended (54.36%) went to those students,” he wrote.

A district court had previously held that the Fairfax school board was targeting Asian American students and removing them to increase the number of black and Hispanic enrollees.

King was joined in his majority opinion by Judge Toby J. Heytens, an appointee of President Biden.

Judge Allison Jones Rushing, who was nominated to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, dissented, saying “the evidence shows an undisputed racial motivation and an undeniable racial result” in the policy.

“Not only did the Board explicitly state its purpose to alter TJ’s racial composition to reflect the demographics of the region, but race was central to its decision-making,” she wrote.

John Foster, division counsel for the Fairfax County School Board said in a statement: “The court reached the correct decision, and we firmly believe this admission plan is fair and gives qualified applicants at every middle school a fair chance of a seat at TJ.

“We look forward to offering seats to a new group of remarkable and incredibly well-qualified young scholars in the years to come.”

Asra Nomani, a cofounder of Coalition for TJ, said the group expected to lose the appeal but is holding out hope that the case will continue to the Supreme Court.

“We expected this biased ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals,” she told The Post.

“But I know in the depths of my soul that we will win for America.”