ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Wednesday afternoon Asra Nomani sat in her study surrounded by three years of protest work. All aimed at stopping Thomas Jefferson High School from changing its admissions policy.
“We saw what broke our heart, that the Supreme Court would not accept our case,” said Nomani, one of the parents behind the Coalition for TJ.
Since 2020, the Coalition for TJ has fought the elite school’s admissions policy change. A policy that threw out standardized test scores. Instead, emphasizing economically disadvantaged students or those still learning English, and not taking race into account.
However, Nomanni and the Coalition for TJ disagreed saying it disproportionately hurt Asian American applicants.
“We just have to keep educating our kids that any form of discrimination is discrimination,” she said. “We can’t just put blinders on because you think one racial group is supposedly achieving.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided not to hear arguments on the constitutionality of Thomas Jefferson’s admissions policy. Instead, it followed a panel of the federal appeals court in Richmond which upheld the constitutionality of a revamped admissions policy at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, frequently cited among the best in the nation.
"We are not finished, we’re not done,” Nomani said.
On the other side, the chair of the Fairfax County school board applauded the court’s ruling.
In a statement, Karl Frisch said:
"We have long believed that the new admissions process is both constitutional and in the best interest of all of our students. It guarantees that all qualified students from all neighborhoods in Fairfax County have a fair shot at attending this exceptional high school.”
The effect in the first freshmen class admitted under the new policy was to increase the percentage of Black students from 1% to 7% and Hispanic students from 3% to 11%. Both groups have been greatly underrepresented for decades. Asian American representation decreased from 73% to 54%.
Nomani said The Coalition for TJ isn’t disbanding, but the group will turn its attention to a more national fight to champion merit-based admissions.
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