A Virginia school board has been accused of using race-based admissions to “racially balance” their student base. The school’s attorney outright denies that such a thing could be true.
The plaintiff claims that the Elite Jefferson High School for Science and Technology’s race-based admissions program disproportionately disadvantaged Asian students who desire to attend.
“It sets no racial quotas, goals, or targets. And it is administered in a race-blind manner,” the Board said in a response to the allegations. “Board regulations forbid consideration of race in admissions decisions, and all applications are anonymized so evaluators do not know the race of any individual applicant. The district court simply slapped the pejorative ‘racial balancing’ label on a race-neutral measure to improve geographic, socioeconomic and racial diversity, without any basis in the record.”
The school’s attorney said, “It gave them an equal opportunity to succeed, which they did. Asian American students were by far the largest racial group among the students offered admission (54.36%); their share of offers exceeded their share of the applicant pool (48.59%).”
Despite Asians having been the majority at the school, a federal judge ruled that TJHS did in fact illegally discriminate against Asian students in their application process.
Admission-based discrimination against Asian Americans is incredibly common, especially on the college level. Because Asians are typically more capable when it comes to basic scholastic subjects they are expected to perform better on an individual basis than members of other demographic groups. The idea that Asians are good at math is a harmful stereotype. It is true that many Asians excel in math however not all do.
For this reason, it would be unfair to hold all Asians in general to a higher standard of capability in any given subject in comparison to members of other groups.