Ending Discrimination in K-12 Education
Education is often the key for students to unlock their potential, but discriminatory policies are denying students the chance for a quality education.
Discrimination has no place in our nation’s schools.
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.
Of Note
COALITION FOR TJ V. FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD
Public magnet school limits opportunities for Asian American students
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology—commonly referred to as TJ—is the top-ranked public high school in the nation. For decades, admission to TJ was merit-based and race-blind, which meant TJ provided many low-income, minority, and immigrant students an opportunity they didn’t have elsewhere: the opportunity to attend a top school regardless of their family’s income, race, or status. But even though the majority of TJ’s student body were minorities, the school board and superintendent decided they were the wrong kind of minority. TJ scrapped the admissions test and implemented a system designed to admit fewer Asian American students and more black and Hispanic students. Represented by PLF, TJ students and families are fighting to end the new discriminatory admissions system and re-implement race-blind admissions.
“All men are created equal” is the American ideal that promises the government will treat each individual equally.
- After decades of slavery and a Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed all Americans “equal protection of the laws.” But the Supreme Court took another 75 years to recognize that “separate is inherently unequal,” and even after that, schoolhouse doors were blockaded for students of the wrong color. It took civil rights laws, the federal courts, and untold thousands of freedom fighters to end the reign of the segregationists.
- Today, however, public schools are reintroducing race-based policies designed to admit or deny students’ educational opportunities based on their race. Often undertaken in the name of diversity or equity, school districts are designing admissions policies to reach the right “balance” of races in school.
PLF has successfully defeated discriminatory K-12 policies across the country.
- World-class magnet schools in Hartford, Connecticut, are no longer turning away black and Hispanic students and leaving seats empty to fill racial quotas for white students.
- Middle schools and high schools can no longer prevent male dancers from joining school dance teams because competitive dance is deemed a “girls sport.”
But schools across the country are implementing discriminatory policies.
- School districts are fighting hard to inject racial discrimination back into school admissions decisions and school operations.
- Universities are cutting men’s athletics programs in a misguided effort to “equalize” participation between men and women. Individual student athletes are paying the price.
Cases
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 …