Lawsuit Challenging TJ Admissions Changes Filed In Federal Court

ALEXANDRIA, VA — On Wednesday, the Coalition for TJ filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the admissions changes at Thomas High School for Science and Technology.

The lawsuit, filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the Coalition for TJ, claims the new admission changes were intended to reduce the share of Asian American students enrolled at TJ. Coalition for TJ members gathered outside the Alexandria federal courthouse Tuesday to announce the lawsuit, which names Fairfax County School Board and Superintendent Scott Brabrand as defendants.

The Fairfax County School Board voted in October 2020 to eliminate the admissions test and $100 application fee at TJ, one of the top ranked high schools in the U.S. In December, the school board chose a holistic review admissions process for the highest-evaluated students and raised the minimum grade-point average and the course requirements for admission, starting with the class of 2025, the incoming freshmen. Under the new admissions policy, the top 1.5 percent of the eighth grade class at each public middle school meeting the minimum standards will be eligible for admission, and the 550 spots would be offered to the highest-evaluated students.

With the admissions changes, FCPS officials hope to improve diversity and access to underserved students at the admissions-based governor's school and improve access to underserved students. Hispanic and Black students in particular have been small in numbers. For example, the TJ class of 2024 is 73 percent Asian, 17 percent white, 6 percent multiracial and 3.3 percent Hispanic. The number of Black students is classified as "too small for reporting."

Erin Wilcox, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, said TJ admissions in past years have been race blind, resulting in a student body with about 70 percent Asian American students. But the Coalition for TJ, an organization of largely Asian American parents, believes the new admissions policy denies their children equal opportunity to compete with other applicants based on their race. The lawsuit names various parents of eighth graders who applied to TJ and are impacted by what they call the "discriminatory admissions practices challenged in this lawsuit."

"This type of racial balancing is unconstitutional," said Wilcox at a Tuesday news conference. "It violates Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, and by putting race above a student's individual talents and abilities, Fairfax County Public Schools is denying their students equal protection under the law."

The federal lawsuit also claims school board members, the superintendent and other school officials have spoken about racially balancing TJ and "have directed derogatory racial comments towards Asian-American families."

Asra Nomani, who came to the U.S. from India as a child and now has a senior at TJ, has worked for nine months in support of families who oppose the admissions changes. She believes immigrant families who came from countries where they faced injustice and oppression "could never have imagined that they would face such injustice in America."

"Right now, America faces a growing tide of racism against Asian Americans," said Nomani. "We've been feeling that racism for the last nine months as we listen to school board meetings that marginalize us, that isolate us, that ignore us, school board members that put the mute button on us because they don't want to hear our voices."

"But these are parents who refuse to stay silent," she continued. "They are the parents who believe in America, and I hope the entire world and this entire country can stand with them, because the Coalition for TJ represents every community everywhere."

Julia McCaskill, who has a student enrolled at TJ and a Rachel Carson Middle School eighth grader applying to TJ, believes school board members have mischaracterized TJ as a school for privileged families. She says many TJ parents are immigrants who came to the U.S. with little money.

As for TJ's diversity problem, McCaskill doesn't think limiting the number of admitted Asian American students will fix the issue of underrepresented students.

"The low admission rate for Black and Hispanic students is the failure of FCPS school board," said McCaskill. "They failed those underrepresented areas over the decades. Instead of fixing the pipeline issues, the authorities are stirring up hate against Asian Americans."

Harry Jackson, the parent of one of the few Black students at TJ and member of the coalition, made the same point about the pipeline in an oped published in the Washington Post. He emphasized with his son that he had to work hard to get admission into TJ, and the same point was made to his middle school daughter.

"To be clear, as an African American father of a TJ student, I would also like to see more Black and Hispanic students at the school," Jackson wrote. "But if those students are not making the grade, the problem isn’t the standards. It’s more likely that the elementary school pipeline is failing to prepare them for the rigors of an environment like TJ."

The federal lawsuit follows a lawsuit filed by parents of 17 middle school gifted students in Fairfax County Circuit Court. In February, a circuit court judge denied a preliminary injunction request to require the standardized admissions test at TJ.

TJ admissions applications for the 2021-2022 school year were due by Feb. 26.