Education Department Launches Probe of Admissions Policy at Top Virginia High School

A lawsuit claims the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminated against Asian American students.

Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Va., in August 2017. Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

The Department of Education is opening an investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia over concerns that its admissions policy at a prestigious high school illegally discriminated against Asian American students.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said the probe was prompted in response to the Fairfax County School Board changing the admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ)—one of the nation’s top-ranked high schools—in 2020.

In a statement, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the school “has long had a reputation for producing some of our nation’s brightest minds, due in no small part to its rigorous admissions process.”

McMahon added that the decision by FCPS to “weigh race” in TJ’s admissions decisions “appears to be both contrary to the law and to the fundamental principle that students should be evaluated on their merit, not the color of their skin.”

According to FCPS, the policy change was introduced to address what it described as “shortcomings” in an admissions system that “persistently drew students from just a handful of the County’s middle schools and resulted in classes that lacked the socioeconomic and geographic diversity seen in the other schools.”

The alteration eliminated the standardized tests and application fee that had long been part of the admission process.

Instead, the review process was based on students’ grades, a problem-solving essay, a “portrait sheet” of their skills, and four experience factors, including special education status, eligibility for free or reduced-price meals, whether they were an English language learner, and whether they attended a historically underrepresented public middle school.

Additionally, the students’ names, race, or other demographic information remained anonymous to admissions evaluators.

The move led to the enrollment of more economically disadvantaged students as well as black and Hispanic students, according to a February 2024 statement from the FCPS.

Coalition for TJ, an advocacy organization of Fairfax County public school parents, sued over the change in March 2021, arguing it came at the expense of Asian American students, whose numbers at the school dropped.

The group, represented by California-based Pacific Legal Foundation, argued in their lawsuit that the changes were “specifically intended to reduce the percentage of Asian American students who enroll in TJ, with the ultimate goal of racially balancing the school according to the racial demographics of Fairfax County.”

As such, the changes to the admissions process were in violation of the equal protection clause, the coalition claimed.

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Case

In the last group of admission offers for the freshman class that entered in the fall of 2023, Asian American students represented 61.6 percent of the offers, with white students receiving 19 percent and black and Hispanic students receiving 6.7 percent and 6 percent, respectively, according to the February statement from the FCPS.

However the coalition argued in its lawsuit that unless the admissions policy was changed, the number of Asian American students in the incoming TJ Class of 2025 is “likely to be cut in half” not because of a drop in the number of qualified Asian American applicants, but “due entirely to Defendants’ stated desire to manipulate TJ’s demographics.”

The Supreme Court last year declined to hear the case, leaving in place a 2023 ruling from the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond that upheld the constitutionality of the admissions policy and let it stand.

The Education Department’s investigation was announced just one day after the office of Virginia’s attorney general, Republican Jason Miyares, concluded its own investigation into FCPS’s revision of TJ’s admissions policy, finding it “discriminates on the basis of race.”

Miyares’s office subsequently referred the complaint to the Education Department.

McMahon thanked Miyares as well as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin for their “diligent work” in “documenting a pattern of concerning practices at TJ.”

She said the department plans to investigate the complaint further to “ensure that all students [are] being assessed fairly, according to merit and accomplishment.”

The school district said it would review the documents released by the state attorney general.

“This matter has already been fully litigated,” Fairfax County Public Schools said in a statement. “A federal appellate court determined there was no merit to arguments that the admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminates against any group of students.”

The Epoch Times has contacted Fairfax County Public Schools for further comment.