"Schooled" On The Law IN Public Education

On August 28, 2023, The Washington Post reported that  the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf on a parent group known as the Coalition for TJ, which is challenging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s decision reversing a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginias February 2022 ruling that a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia’s ruling that Fairfax County School Board’s (FCSB) revised admissions policy for the school district’s select “Governor’s School” designed to achieve racial balance discriminates against Asian-American applicants by reducing the number of Asian-American students admitted to increase the number of African American and Hispanic students admitted. The court concluded that the policy was subject to strict scrutiny even though race neutral on its face because it was motivated by a racial purpose. It found FCSB failed to meet that standard. 

The petition asserts that the admissions policy, like one in the Havard admissions case, violates Aian American applicants’ equal protection rights. As quoted in the Post article: “The Supreme Court made clear in Students for Fair Admission that the Constitution bans discrimination based on race, full stop,” Joshua Thompson, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a statement. “TJ’s admission overhaul tried to hide its discriminatory purpose behind a patina of race-neutrality. But the school’s proxy discrimination clearly violated Chief Justice Robert’s warning against indirect discrimination.”

It appears that the Pacific legal Foundation is hoping to pound the final nail in the use of race as a factor in admissions policies at the K-12 level.