The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) released a new video supporting its legal efforts to fight new admissions policies at Thomas Jefferson (TJ) High School for Science and Technology; the video argues that efforts to change the policy amount to a racist effort to reduce the number of Asian students at the school.
School officials instituted a merit lottery in 2020 to expand the student base to under-represented groups. In response, the coalition protested the decision, and the PLF began representing the coalition in a drawn-out legal battle to block the new policy. A district court agreed with the PLF and said the process was discriminatory, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stayed the lower court’s order, allowing the school to use its new admissions policy for the 2022-2023 school year.
“As a result, TJ’s Class of 2025 is projected to have 42 percent fewer Asian-American students, while no other racial group will lose seats,” PLF argues on its website.
The video says the Fairfax County School Board paid $20,000 to How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi for training, using brief clips of Kendi interspersed with commentary.
“It’s Ibram X. Kendi’s ideology that is fueling this idea that equity is a priority over equality,” Coalition for TJ cofounder Asra Nomani responded.
“If you a racial disparity, then there are racist policies, racial policies behind that inequity. This does not have to be that difficult,” Kendi says.
In another clip of Kendi later, he said, “We have to even reimagine what we consider to be intelligence. We have to reimagine what we consider to be, quote, qualified.”
“That’s what they were trying to do at TJ. They were trying to basically rig the system and engineer it so that they would have the racial makeup that they believed they needed to have, and what that meant was they wanted to get rid of the Asian students,” Nomani responded.
– – –
Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology” by Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Admissions (TJHSST).
