The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was investigating the admissions system at an elite public high school in Fairfax County, Va., which has been accused of discriminating against Asian American students to favor other racial groups.
The administration has repeatedly argued that the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in college admissions should also apply to K-12 education. But the court has never made such a statement, and it chose last year to allow the high school’s admissions program to stand.
The school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, is considered one of the best in the country. In 2020, the Fairfax County School Board overhauled the admissions process for Thomas Jefferson in an effort to diversify the majority-Asian student body. It did away with a high-stakes admissions exam and instituted a policy to reserve seats for top students from each area middle school. Applicants must also submit grades and essays.
Under the new admissions process, evaluators do not know the names or races of applicants. But they do consider whether candidates overcame challenges such as poverty or learning English as a second language.
The new admissions system led to a decrease in the percentage of Asian students at the school, and an increase in the percentage of Black, Hispanic and low-income students.
Asian Americans still make up the largest ethnic group at Thomas Jefferson, accounting for 60 percent of students, according to district data. Nineteen percent of all students in the district are Asian.
Asian American parents and other plaintiffs sued the school system in 2021 over the new policy, saying it discriminated against Asian students. A district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but an appeals court ruled against them. And last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, allowing the new admissions program to continue.
That case was based on an equal protection claim under the Constitution. The Trump administration has based its own battle against school diversity efforts on a different law — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. The administration has repeatedly argued that liberal-leaning schools and colleges have violated the rights of Asian, Jewish and white students, and has tried to withhold funding from institutions that do not comply with its agenda.
In a written statement announcing the investigation into Thomas Jefferson, Linda McMahon, the U.S. secretary of education, said the school’s admissions system appeared to stand “contrary to the law and to the fundamental principle that students should be evaluated on their merit, not the color of their skin.”
Asra Nomani, the parent of a Thomas Jefferson graduate and a member of the coalition that filed the lawsuit against the admissions system, said the federal investigation “revives our fight for justice and restores hope to families who have long felt ignored.”
After the district eliminated the test that previously controlled admissions to Thomas Jefferson, many Asian American families in the county said they felt officials were penalizing them for encouraging their children to study for the exam.
“Our children have been vilified — called ‘cheaters,’ ‘white-adjacent,’ even ‘resource hoarders’ — for working hard and daring to dream,” Ms. Nomani said.
Richard Kahlenberg, a prominent liberal opponent of race-based affirmative action, said he favored systems like Thomas Jefferson’s, which are race-neutral but still aim to diversify schools and equalize opportunity.
The Trump administration’s investigation is “a classic case of overreach,” he said. “Of course a student who managed to do well despite growing up in a disadvantaged family or poor neighborhood deserves extra consideration.”
Historically, even conservative Supreme Court justices have signaled that they are comfortable with class-based diversity efforts. But at least three justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — have indicated that such programs could be understood as a sort of backdoor system of racial preference.
Conservative legal groups have continued to test various cases that could prompt the court to revisit the issue of diversity efforts in K-12 education.
The Trump administration announced its investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools days after a conservative advocacy group, Defending Education, filed a federal complaint against the district. Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares, a Republican, concluded his own investigation into the admissions system on Wednesday, finding that it violated Title VI by explicitly seeking to decrease Asian American enrollment while increasing enrollment of other groups.
Given the continued federal and state legal scrutiny of such practices, “it is entirely possible that T.J. will find itself before the Supreme Court again in due time,” said Sarah Parshall Perry, the vice president of Defending Education, using a common nickname for the high school.
In a written statement, Fairfax County Public Schools said it was reviewing the new legal documents, but argued, “This matter has already been fully litigated.”
Joshua P. Thompson, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the Asian American parents fighting the new admissions system, said the political landscape has changed because the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from schools.
“The question,” he said, “is going to be if Fairfax County decides to defend their admissions changes again in federal court.”
Dana Goldstein covers education and families for The Times.
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