Racially discriminatory policies are insidious and just the latest iteration of the long-rejected idea that race and sex ought to determine opportunity in America. All men are created equal, and every person is guaranteed equal protection of the laws.

 

As Chief Justice John Roberts rightly said, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Pacific Legal Foundation fights to ensure that students aren’t denied a quality education because of their race or sex.

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Pacific Legal Foundation fights to ensure that students aren’t denied a quality education because of their race or sex.

May 16, 2022 | By ALISON SOMIN

The Hill: ‘Coalition for TJ’ ruling shows courts can stop cheating on race preferences

A federal district court recently struck down the Fairfax County School Board’s (FCSB) revamped admissions scheme at the highly selective magnet school, Thomas Jefferson High School, in Alexandria, …

May 6, 2022 | By CAROL PARK

Washington Post: Asian students are victims of Montgomery County’s achievement gap

A just government cannot oppress the poor or exploit relatively small mistakes to seize lifesavings at their residents’ expense. And yet, Michigan counties are fighting in courts across the state to…

March 28, 2022 | By ERIN WILCOX

The Hill: Virginia court ruling a welcome sign in fight to end race-based school admissions

Will 2022 be the year we finally see an end to discriminatory racial preferences in education? There are welcome signs of change in the air.

February 17, 2022 | By ERIN WILCOX

Orange County Register: Voters send clear message to the San Francisco school board

There’s no mistaking the message Tuesday’s recall election sent to the San Francisco Board of Education: focus on education, not racial politics.

January 17, 2022 | By ERIN WILCOX

The Hill: The parents were right

Coauthored by Asra Q. Nomani, vice president of the grassroots organization Parents Defending Education and cofounder of Coalition for TJ, which advocates for diversity and excellence at Thomas Jeffer…

April 21, 2022 | By GLENN ROPER

TJ alum calls admissions changes ‘a war on excellence’ in Washington Post

My colleagues and I have written many times about our Thomas Jefferson High School admissions case, but nothing we could write better captures what’s at stake in the case than what Coalition for TJ member Hung Cao just wrote in The Washington Post. Cao is a TJ alum. A Vietnamese refugee who later became a …

April 08, 2022 | By GLENN ROPER

Parents file emergency request with Supreme Court in TJ admissions case

On March 31, the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to stay a February 25 district court ruling that the Fairfax County School Board violated the law in changing admissions requirements at the nation’s top public high school. The district court judge had agreed with a coalition of concerned parents and community members …

March 02, 2022 | By BRITTANY HUNTER

Restoring equality before the law — What the TJ victory means for education

In a ground-breaking decision, federal judge Claude Hilton ruled last Friday that Fairfax County school officials violated the law by changing admissions requirements at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), the nation’s top public school. In 2020, administrators decided to change the school’s admissions policy from a merit- …

February 23, 2022 | By BRITTANY HUNTER

West Virginia seeks to end the use of harmful stereotypes in public education with help from Pacific Legal Foundation

Imagine being taught from an early age to reduce a person’s identity or worth to immutable characteristics over which they have no power, particularly race and gender. This is a trend rapidly taking hold of the public education system. But PLF is helping state lawmakers craft legislation that will stop the worst type of harmful …

February 08, 2022 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

John McWhorter says ‘woke racism’ hurts black college students

The year before California banned race-based affirmative action at state schools, only one black student out of 3,268 freshmen made honors at the University of California, San Diego. But in 1998, after the ban on racial preferences went into effect, one in five black students made honors at UC San Diego—the same ratio as white …

January 27, 2022 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

‘Strict scrutiny’ will determine Harvard’s anti-Asian discrimination case. What is it?

The students suing Harvard over its race-conscious admissions process are asking a simple question: What is Harvard’s compelling interest in discriminating against Asian Americans?  Harvard’s attorneys will soon be trying to answer that question in front of the Supreme Court: The Court just granted cert in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. …

January 24, 2022 | By BRITTANY HUNTER

You think higher ed’s discriminatory admissions policies are bad? Just wait until you hear about K-12

Today, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear the case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. The crux of the case rests in the question: Should racial preferences in university admissions be legal? Harvard officials think so, as is evidenced by its own admissions …

January 24, 2022 | By JOSEPH KAST

Thomas Jefferson High School becomes an arena for the battle between parents and policy

**This article appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of Pacific Legal Foundation’s quarterly magazine, Sword&Scales**   The large auditorium was mostly empty when the Fairfax County School Board held its public hearing in May. Schools had been closed for much of the school year and Fairfax’s indoor mask mandate was still in effect. Seven …

January 05, 2022 | By BRITTANY HUNTER

The Inconvenient Minority

***Editor’s note: On January 7, 2022 the Supreme Court will decide whether or not they hear the case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which deals with Harvard discriminating against Asian applicants during the admissions process. This article is featured in the winter edition of our quarterly magazine Sword&Scales. ~~~ Historically, the …