ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A federal judge has ruled that a parents’ group can move forward with a lawsuit alleging that new admissions policies at an elite public high school in Virginia discriminate against Asian Americans.
More than 70 percent of the student body at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is Asian American; Black and Hispanic students have been woefully underrepresented there for decades.
At a hearing Friday in Alexandria, lawyers for the Fairfax County School Board urged a judge to toss out the lawsuit.
They argue that the new admissions policies are race neutral.
But the judge ruled that the parents' group made a compelling claim that the board's true motivation was to increase Black and Hispanic representation at the expense of Asian Americans.
