In the latest challenge to the role race may play in school admissions, a legal activist group asked the Supreme Court on Monday to hear a case on how students are selected at one of the country’s top high schools, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.
A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in May that Thomas Jefferson, a public school in Alexandria, Va., did not discriminate in its admissions.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian law group, wants the Supreme Court to overturn that decision, arguing that the school’s new admissions policies disadvantaged Asian American applicants.
At issue is the use of what the school board said were race-neutral criteria to achieve a diverse student body.
“This is the next frontier,” Joshua P. Thompson, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, has said of the litigation.
Persons:
Thomas, Thomas Jefferson, Joshua P, Thompson
Organizations:
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science, Technology, U.S ., Appeals, Fourth Circuit, Pacific Legal Foundation, Harvard, University of North
Locations:
Alexandria, Va, University of North Carolina