New admissions rules at elite US high school discriminate against Asian-Americans, judge says
- Asian representation fell from 73 per cent to 54 per cent in Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology’s latest cohort after the policy changes
- The ruling comes roughly a month after the US Supreme Court agreed to hear a similar case filed by Asian-American families against Harvard
A US federal judge ruled on Friday that a Virginia school system illegally discriminated against Asian-Americans when it overhauled the admissions policies at an elite public school.
The ruling from US District Judge Claude Hilton found that impermissible “racial balancing” was at the core of the plan to overhaul admissions to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as “TJ”.
The school routinely ranks as the best or one of the best public schools in the country, and slots at the school are highly competitive.
In 2020, the Fairfax County School Board significantly revamped the admissions process at the school. A standardised test that had been a linchpin of the admissions process was scrapped in favour of a system that set aside equal numbers of TJ slots at each of the county’s middle schools, among other changes.
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‘Anti-blackness is something deeply rooted in my community,’ says student Eileen Huang
Hilton, in his ruling, wrote, “The discussion of admissions changes was infected with talk of racial balancing from its inception.”
