Supreme Court Lets Virginia High School Keep ‘Race Neutral’ Admissions Policy

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The U.S. Supreme Court decided Tuesday to allow a Virginia high school to choose its own racially influenced admissions policy rather than intervening at the request of Asian American students.

The elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria adopted an admissions policy in 2020 that got rid of standardized test scores. It also gave a preference to high-performing applicants from surrounding middle schools.

Afterward, the number of Black and Latino students rose but the number of Asian Americans dropped. 

Some Asian American parents sued, saying the policy allows race to be an issue in admissions despite Supreme Court rulings saying school admissions policies should not make race a priority.

The high school’s administrators say the policy is race neutral, despite the fact it gives greater consideration to applicants who are economically disadvantaged or still learning English.

Previously, Thomas Jefferson High School students came predominantly from affluent areas of Northern Virginia. U.S. News and World Report ranked the school as the best public high school in the United States in 2022.

After the school adopted the new policy, the percentage of Black students in the freshman class rose from 1% to 7% and Hispanic students increased from 3% to 11%.

The number of Asian Americans decreased from 73% to 54%.

A group called Coalition for TJ sued, saying the policy was intended to “racially balance the freshman class by excluding Asian Americans.” The coalition said the policy violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Their legal complaint urged the Supreme Court to strike down the policy because other high schools were adopting similar guidelines. They claim to have race-neutral admissions but really are trying to “accomplish a racial objective,” Coalition for TJ said.

The school board’s lawyers argued the new policy “removes both socioeconomic and geographic barriers” to enrollment in a top school. They said the criteria were “race blind.”

A U.S. District Court judge initially handed a victory to the Coalition for TJ by ruling in 2022 that the school board was unlawfully engaging in “racial balancing.”

The District Court’s decision was overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The next appeal took the case to the Supreme Court for the ruling Tuesday. 

One of the issues was the Supreme Court’s decision last June that eliminated affirmative action and consideration of race in college admissions. The case was Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in saying, “Many universities have for too long wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built or lessons learned, but the color of their skin. This nation’s constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

In a dissent from the court’s order Tuesday, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said the 7-2 majority departed from its own ruling.

The dissent written by Alito said the court is sending a signal that “intentional racial discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe. This reasoning is indefensible, and it cries out for correction.”

In a similar decision this month, the Supreme Court denied a request to prohibit the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from considering race and ethnicity in its admissions.

The case decided Tuesday is Coalition for T.J. v. Fairfax County School Board.

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