Asian Enrollment Slashed at Top Virginia High School After Admissions Changes Subject Of Lawsuit
Parent’s group at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology: “Fairfax County Public Schools has also broken the hearts of many deserving students by waging a crusade against Asian students at the school, first by proposing a random lottery and later by implementing the current race-balanced “holistic” admissions system that amounts to social engineering.”
There is a war on asian enrollment at elite public high schools, where standardized testing has resulted in large asian student enrollments and lower black and hispanic enrollments.
In order to increase black and hispanic enrollment, it’s argued, standardized testing needs to be minimized or eliminated. But that’s just a polite way of masking anti-asian bias.
In Boston, standardized testing was minimized and a zip code factor implemented in order to avoid legal liability. So far, it’s worked in Boston, where courts have dismissed challenges to the plan and the result was a dramatic decline in asian enrollment for the incoming class, as we covered in As Predicted, Boston “Zip Code Quota Plan” For Elite Public Schools Reduced Asian and White Admissions, Raised Black and Latino.
In Virginia, a lawsuit was filed allegeding anti-asian bias in admissions changes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), including elimination of a standardized test previously used. While the court denied an immediate injunction, since it was too late to disrupt the incoming freshman class admissions, the court refused to dismiss the case, allowing it to move forward. According to reports fron the courtroom, the Judge stated that the discriminatory intent was obvious from public statements of school board members:
“Everybody knows the policy is not race neutral, and that it’s designed to affect the racial composition of the school,” Judge Claude Hilton said. “You can say all sorts of beautiful things while you’re doing others.”
As in Boston, the plan at TJ worked. In statistics just released, the percentage of asians offered admission was cut dramatically:
A premier public high school in northern Virginia has dramatically increased the number of Black and Hispanic students offered admission under a new application system that some Asian American parents say discriminates against their children.
On Wednesday, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County released demographic data on the 550 students who were offered admission to the school this fall as incoming freshmen. The percentage of Black students increased from 1% last year to 7% this year. Hispanic representation increased from 3% to 11% and white representation increased from 18% to 22%.
Asian American representation decreased from 73% to 54%.
Across the county school system as a whole, about 38% of students are white, 27% are Hispanic, 20% are Asian and 10% are Black.
Across the county school system as a whole, about 38% of students are white, 27% are Hispanic, 20% are Asian and 10% are Black.
The group supporting the lawsuit, Coalition for TJ, issued this statement (bold in original)
We love Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and we congratulate every student accepted for admission into the TJ Class of 2025. Fairfax County Public Schools has also broken the hearts of many deserving students by waging a crusade against Asian students at the school, first by proposing a random lottery and later by implementing the current race-balanced “holistic” admissions system that amounts to social engineering.
School district leaders eliminated the merit-based, race-blind admissions test to the school and replaced it with a race-based admissions process that targeted Asian students with discrimination.
The percentage of Asian students offered admissions to TJ plummeted from 73 percent last year to 54 percent this year. Asians were the only demographic group whose numbers decreased from last year to this year, while the number of white students in this TJ class increased a whopping 43 percent to 123 students accepted this year from 86 last year.
We seek fairness for all families and students, and we reject the racism of the ideology of “critical race theory” that promotes admissions lotteries and race quotas while killing merit. We will continue to fight for an American Dream in which all people have equal protection under the law.
Coalition for TJ posted this spreadsheet (more detailed breakdown here):
The percentage of Asian students offered admissions to TJ plummeted from 73% last year to 54% this year. Asians were the only demographic group whose numbers decreased from last year to this year. pic.twitter.com/WKyNMVohf6
— Coalition for TJ #SaveTJ (@coalitionforTJ) June 24, 2021
It’s interesting that the percentage of whites increased as well. Asians were sacrificed, which was the plan all along.
I thought the point of changing the admissions standards was to fight white supremacy?
And of course, Asian students were the ones who had to be sacrificed… 🙄🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ https://t.co/SCByOXkCFZ— Ray Liu (@RayLiuNYC) June 24, 2021
This result proves the point of the lawsuit.
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Comments
“We love Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology”
Misplaced love. Government schools will screw you while sending you the bill.
Affirmative Action will be used to advance chosen minorities. Hard work and drive will be punished.
THE WOKE HAVE GOOD REASON TO ATTACK ASIANS
Asians must be attacked because they expose the lie of the Woke narrative that America is institutionally racist and that Whites are holding back minorities. The Woke cannot allow this anti-narrative to exist. Search Google and you will see many articles in media attacking the Asian community and trying to convince people that the Asian community experience cannot be used to counter the Black experience. But anyone with a brain can see the contrasting experiences of these two minorities speak volumes about the Woke agenda.
Think about it. Most Asians came to the USA from 1967 to 1977 — after immigration laws were liberalized in the mid -1960s.
At about the same time (early 1970’s) modern Affirmative Action was established giving Blacks a major advantage in education and in government contracts.
Most Asians came to the USA with very little money and spoke little or no English. Asians history in the USA prior to 1970 was one of discrimination by both Whites and blacks. Compared to Asians in 1970, BLACKS had every advantage: they had higher income, spoke English, knew the US culture, a boost from Affirmative Action.
50 years later – Asians exceed Blacks by every measure — without any benefit from AA.
BUT THAT BLOWS AWAY THE NARRATIVE THAT AMERICA IS STRUCTURALLY RACIST. THE NARRATIVE FAILS IF A NON-WHITE RACE SUCCEEDS. IT IS EVEN SHARPER WHEN THAT NON-WHATE RACE WAS EVEN MORE DISADVANTAGED THAN THE RACE THEY ARE COMPARED TO.
So, the Woke answer is to tear the Asian community down. Ironically, the Woke want to build structural barriers to Asian success — creating the very structural racist system they pretend exists in the USA. Then, they will blame it all on Whites. In a sense they will be right – because, sadly, most of the deranged Woke are liberal Whites.
The Woke are on a mission to destroy the Asian success story ASAP – before their deranged followers finally wake up and see that the Woke narrative is a lie.
The Woke and the DNC do not want to address the real problem – because they caused it. The problem in the Black community faces is cultural. It is worship of Gangsters. It is anti-intellectualism. It is broken families with absentee fathers due to Dem policies that are designed to make the Black community dependent upon the government. It is crime that is rampant in the black community and that destabilizes the black community.
Blaming Whites is a misdirection – so that Dems do not have to admit that they failed generations of Black children. This is not to say that racism does not exist – but it is not “institutionalized” unless you consider institutionalized racism to be the forced dependence that the Dems have instituted to capture and subjugate the black community.
If woke-ness continues to depend on melaniin content for measuring all desired results, I think this result fits the goals nicely.
Ben, your immigration history for Asians to the US is flat out wrong. Most Asians did NOT come to the US in 1967-77. Indeed, most Asians came in the second half of the 19th Century and early 20th Century. Most of these folks were Chinese and Japanese who came to California to work on railroads, farming, and other work. They migrated across our country. South Asians started coming to our country after WWII. The decade after the Vietnam War saw a number of Laotian and Vietnamese immigrants. We have had continued Asian immigration since.
I am not wrong.
More Asians came to the USA from 1967 to 1977 than all those who came in the prior 150 years. Check the data.
http://aapidata.com/blog/1965-two-graphs/
Where on earth did you come up with that wildly inaccurate narrative? It’s counterfactual in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin.
I don’t think it’s particularly interesting that whites increased (as the tweet linked above says). In the new numbers, the whites are still the only ones being throttled heavily under their weight class in terms of population density. Blacks and Hispanics are still under their densities, but their test scores also match those disparities.
Asians are still outpunching their weight class (and good for them!) while forcing in a few minorities that underperform on tests and lower performing whites will just serve to dilute their curriculum and make it easier for indoctrination of the lower half of the class.
Meanwhile, the left continues their attempt to seduce Asians into supporting their assault on “Whiteness”. Will Asians fall for it?
I’m pretty sure Asians will still insist that 2+2=4. Even the North Koreans aren’t that crazy.
You mean will they still vote democrat? Well duh?
Many Asians have indeed fell for it or at least are exploiting it politically. look at Hirono and Wang off the top of my head. I have never studied the matter, just am amazed that they and many Jews vote for democrats. High achievers themselves academically but rarely stand out in athletics. Please tell us what is your actual beef.
Another chapter in the Dem’s narrative in which an evil capitalist racist America commits Marxist assisted suicide. And is then resurrected as a Marxist utopia.
Though it’s been tried several times in the last hundred plus years and failed, resulting in a hundred million or more dead — AKA ‘a statistic’ in Marxist parlance — surely this time it will work. Because American Marxists have the very best of intentions. And those who oppose them are evil. And that’s all that matters.
I’m told that differences between the races are a result of privilege. I eagerly await “white adjacent” to become Asian privilege.
The only white privilege is that of white democrats who have reached positions of power. They talk critical race theory out of one side of their mouth while discriminating out of the other side.
Actually, CRT and racism are equivalent. CRT condones use of racism as a means of fighting racism. So long as you are racist against the presently disfavored race – then you are a good social justice warrior and they will call you, ironically, an anti-racist.
Don’t worry, plenty of asian’s fell for the “asian hate crime” ploy.
All the ones who were sucker punched in the face fell for it.
The only way they are going to make a change is if their vote backs their belief that they should have equality instead of being discriminated against.
You get what you pay for in economic matters-You get what you vote for in political matters.
If the school is 100 percent Asian based on merit then they EARNED it. Squashing their numbers to let anyone in based on their race versus their qualifications is unfair.
Maybe Asians should setup a private school, and pull all their children out of Jefferson?
I want my kids to go to that school too. I will help them set it up.
>> Only the strong survive.
School that teach dependence – produce functional slaves.
That means the parents will be paying twice for their children’s education, once via their school taxes and once for private tuition. That’s unfair.
This is Dawinism at it’s perfection:
we, the fools who tolerate this, will be destroyed by it.
Meanwhile, in Boston, this plan gets thumbs-up all around:
So, to summarize: redlining mortgages, no — redlining schools, si.
Any questions? Now, get back to packing bananas.
I’m sure the Chinese are all in
Wow, my whole comment erased again by an auto refresh. Can you fix this flaw?
This new admissions system replaces the last new admissions system which was biased towards admitting Asians (which designation probably includes Indians) as proved by the over-representation of Asians from three middle schools.
Three feeder schools were hogging a majority of the spots. Now, the spots are shared among all of the feeder schools – just like the taxes that support the school.
This new admissions system will survive the legal challenge based on the economics. The wealthy Asians are welcome to pay for private schools for their students if that is their desire.
So are you trying to excuse the changed admissions standards based on taxation rather than on a reward system for greater ability compared to the general population?
.
Are they also welcome to get their school taxes refunded that pay for the public school they were denied entry to?
A society that fails to provide its most talented students the means to achieve to their maximum potential is not a society that is “fairly” distributing resources, it’s a society determined to be less competitive than it could be.
An education that challenges students who have already shown they perform at the highest levels is not a piece of government pork to be doled out by quota but a shrewd investment in the future. Providing such an education to students who lack the abilities to make good use of what’s offered is like offering free ladders to people who are unable to walk. Unless you did something stupendously stupid like shoot yourself in the leg no one is blaming you for not being able to walk. But just because you can neither walk nor climb is no reason to deny tools to enhance these abilities for those who can.
“Gimme my free ladder!! It’s not fair, if any receive these then all must receive them!”
Really? Who do you think is going to start up that company that provides you with gainful employment? Who’s going to discover the medical science that can mitigate the effects of at least some of the diseases that are always with us? Who’s going to provide alternatives to fossil fuels when these finally run out (as they must)?
The old system was not “biased toward Asians,” it was biased toward those who could best make use of a very rigorous education in science and technology.
“The wealthy Asians are welcome to pay …”
Stereotype much?
Also note that, it is reported that in the recent past, the Asians have fought hard against TJ admissions standards that would have increased the weight of English proficiency. Think hard about what that means for a moment….
Thinking hard about Ebonics. The real measure is whether they will have to reduce the rigor of the instruction and testing to prevent the expected higher level of failure…. since the classes will not be selected on scholastic aptitude.
Ebonics? Whatever happened to pidgin English? Oh that’s right. They gained English proficiency within a generation. Rap? They couldn’t wrap their head around it.
This is whataboutism. I don’t care what they fought for in the past, especially when they didn’t get it.
In a sane world the non-Asians (and more properly, the non-high-achievers of any background) would work even harder to gain admittance. By playing games with quotas and other gimmicks the quest for success and highest achievement is thrown out the window. Too many morons in education and industry (and now, it seems, even the military) are making decisions based on “feelings” and “emotions” as opposed to common sense.
I absolutely hate the auto refresh feature that erases my comments as I’m about to submit.
White people are just as smart as Asians. You have to look at the percentage of smart people compared to the number of people in a population. Asians (which includes Indians) have much bigger worldwide populations.
It is my understanding that TJ’s original admissions system was changed to minimize English proficiency which is how admissions were skewed away from white people (who make up a large amount of local taxpayers) to Asian people (who make up a much smaller amount of local taxpayers). Asians were ok with the change to TJ’s admissions system as long as it was skewed in their favor.
Out where I live, we have an ethnic grouping who didn’t bother to lobby to “relax English standards” — they just demanded permanent accommodation in the language of their native land… and they got it. Not just in the schools, but in every aspect of government interface. If you expect me to consider your situation outrageous and unprecedented, look elsewhere.
And yes, as a Virginia taxpayer, I’m saying that it’s unfair that many state and local citizens from less wealthy areas would pay taxes for a school that only serves students from three middle schools in a very wealthy area.
If the parents from the very wealthy area want their own private STEM school, then they should pay for it instead of everyone else paying for it.
Egghead, there is one flaw in your consideration. Education is not a free gift like, say, a free washing machine. And not simply a pass to a higher salary jobs, you need to perform on those jobs too. I assume Virginia doesn’t spend taxes on this school (it’s state funded, right?) as a gift to its residents, fairly shared or not. The goal is probably to get more graduates who can become good engineers, doctors, lawyers etc. for everybody’s benefits. Would you choose a low-performing surgeon only because he went to the middle school next to your place? Mixing low-performers and high-performers in one school doesn’t improve anything, in fact quite opposite. If you want fairness, help should be distributed (and properly accepted) to less wealthy districts much earlier than a high school.
The truth is that you cannot teach those who do not want to learn.
I used to do presentations at a broad range of colleges and even 4th grade to 12th.
I found 4th-6th grade to be quite attentive in inner city schools, middle & HS were not. They were interested in socializing, disruptive, a waste of my time and money.
Yeah, that’s what I meant by “properly accepted”, Tax money (or any money for that matter) doesn’t create incentives to learn, family and neighborhood do, and without incentives any help is pretty useless, be it busing or ziping. Incentives are also killed by a snowflake approach. Losers should be called losers (without bullying of course), only then they have incentives to stop being losers, otherwise why bother?
Is less per student spent on the low performers? If so, they should have more help. But if TJ doesn’t cost more per student, then it should be OK — but it’s fully appropriate to require enough English skill that it gives the native-born an advantage. We should have an advantage.
I’m disgusted to see a white family demanding what is precisely an affirmative action program for whites because their progeny can’t cut the mustard at the best-of-the-best schools. Instead, perhaps the white kids who can’t cut the mustard should attend a less-prestigious, less-exclusive local school, which (unlike forcing Asians to pay for their own school) would still be free.
Alternatively, you could think out of the box and realize that the entire problem arises from the socialist principle under which government-run schools must run: productive people who have the money are forced to pay for bennies enjoyed exclusively by other people. Government schools are socialist. Even people who have no children at all are forced to pay for them — imagine how much more unfair that is than Timmy not getting into the school he preferred. Exacerbated, of course, by the government’s mysterious (but entirely typical) inability to stock more than a single, select school with challenging, advanced programs to serve an advanced clientele.
Were you out picketing (assuming you were even around) when everybody in the WMATA Compact area was taxed to construct subway service that was promised to be “completed all the way out to Tysons Corner (and the rest of the VA/MD suburbs) by the bicentennial,” but in fact served nobody but our masters in DC (and a couple token stops in MD) for roughly two decades after that? Where was the public transportation service that you paid for and “deserved?”
Here in Maricopa County — a county larger than the state of Rhode Island, we folks out in the rural fringes got taxed to build a “light rail system” that will never serve anybody but the innermost of the inner city residents of Phoenix (and, of course, our masters in Government Center). Unlike Virginians, we understood that a robbery was in progress from day one.
You are the folks who should be starting your own quality schools, and demanding vouchers (school tax refunds) to pay for it. But Virginia is a blue state now, so good luck dealing with Common Core and school resource officers.
Your rant is misguided, and their situation in urban Virginia has little to do with light rail in Arizona. They can’t just start up more schools in their already urbanized county, and those they do start up will have diversity requirements etc. They need enough access to their cream of the crop schools that foreigners don’t come in and take all the spots. Building in a self-defense like a language assessment that matters is just rational.
What’s disgusting is your anti-American bias showing here.
Visit any major Medical School in the Midwest – Northwestern, Ohio State, Michigan State, Indiana, U of Chicago, etc. Large majority of the class is Asian students. Don’t we want the very best students for our future Medical Doctors?
Basic education we treat as a right. everyone very nearly can be taught to read, write, and do basic arithmetic, but not everyone can be a doctor, engineer, or chemist to name but a few specialties. it is a waste of precious resources to try to make people what they can never actually be.
Many of the commenters here seem to be profoundly confused about the evolving TJ situation and its implications.
Many of you must be simply baffled how the United States survived and thrived for the majority of our history when white people and students were the majority.
You wrongly imply that white students are dullards compared to (sometimes actually foreign and often culturally and/or linguistically foreign) Asians.
To be clear, I suspect that TJ’s original admissions system was intentionally changed to disadvantage American white students who were well-rounded in both verbal and STEM areas in favor of (sometimes actually foreign and often culturally and/or linguistically foreign) Asian students who were talented mainly in STEM areas.
American students (white, black, and brown) need teachers and co-workers who are capable of teaching and leading STEM teams using English language that is easily understandable to Americans.
and workplace aside, the locals have a right to self-defense of the best things in their community against foreigners coming in and taking almost ALL of it.
You want some new blood. You don’t want a total transfusion that removes all the existing blood.
Nationwide, most Asian primary and secondary school students are not recent immigrants. The vast majority are fluent in English. Their academic performance levels tend to be high because of cultural factors, namely: their parents and families value education and discipline their children to ensure that they work hard.
To recap, when you have wealthy foreign families moving from foreign countries to Virginia to “game the system“ to get their child admitted to TJ (over an American Virginian child), then that is a problem that needs to be addressed in fairness to the American Virginian taxpayer who funds TJ.
I agree. Some of that is good and helps the property values, as well as improving the intellectual level in honors classes generally. Too much of it is self-harm and the existing people have no need to allow it.
Thanks, artichoke, but you are making two assumptions: 1) that the wholesale replacement of white students by Asian students resulted in an improvement in the intellectual level in honors classes generally, and 2) that any improvement would matter to white students who were closed out of attending TJ. The school system used Asians (including Indians) to replace whites before the system figured out how to use blacks and browns to replace whites. This year, the total number of admitted white students still grossly under-represents the local white population. And yes, the white students in NOVA are extremely smart and motivated.
William A. Jacobson: In order to increase black and hispanic enrollment, it’s argued, standardized testing needs to be minimized or eliminated. But that’s just a polite way of masking anti-asian bias.
This is hilarious. The argument is that a policy that is race neutral on its face has discriminatory impact, that it constitutes systemic racism!
The irony of this is it was rich, very liberal, white parents upset that their little snowflakes were not motivated, excuse me “smart” enough who started this push. And it will be rich, very liberal, white little snowflakes who will benefit the most.
Your comment is inaccurate, Mr85, but it does show the same blatant hostility to smart white students as the TJ admissions process.
Virginia was a Republican state until very recently. White parents neither started this push nor benefited from it. Rather, it was the school system that sought – and achieved – a TJ admissions system that minimized the admittance of smart white students both before and now.
Everyone needs to look at the detailed statistical table above. It’s clear that the prior admissions system which resulted in an extraordinary imbalance of Asian students (mainly from three middle schools) was so biased and demoralizing that white students literally gave up applying for entry. The number of white students applying went up this year as white students hoped for better access (and got a few percentage points more crumbs of access that is still grossly out of line to the numerical numbers of white students in the school system).
Under the new admissions system, Asians still outnumber whites by more 2 to 1.
“Asian American representation decreased from 73% to 54%.”
“Across the county school system as a whole, about 38% of students are white, 27% are Hispanic, 20% are Asian and 10% are Black.”
Correction: Under the new admissions system, Asians still outnumber whites by more than 2 to 1.”
Note that, in my experience with the “new” type of admissions system as administered at Maggie Walker in the Richmond, Virginia area, many of the spots reserved for smart white students are “given” to the children of school system educators and employees (rather than a broader set of smart white students).
This is the same Maggie Walker that held a large regional student event and featured a black female speaker who told high school students that the government should confiscate the property of people with more than one house and “give” that “extra” property to poor people without homes.
As to the issue of English proficiency of Asian students applying to TJ, the Asian parents have ALREADY conceded the problem of English proficiency by previously fighting against English proficiency being included as a TJ admissions criteria (as discrimination against the admissions of Asian students).
I would like to note that there are two forms of English proficiency: written and spoken. Asian students might be good in one area while being weak in another. I have personally judged debates in NOVA where Asian high school students clearly understood English without being able to clearly speak English.
I would also like to note that, rather than being immigrants, some of the Asian students at TJ are literally foreign citizen Asian students who only come to the USA shortly before the TJ admissions process.
There was a famous scandal involving a Korean student (I think her dad was a diplomat) who attended TJ who then forged acceptance letter(s) saying she was accepted to a hybrid Ivy League college program on both coasts, and became a cause celebre in Korea. Her dad later publicly apologized to the country of Korea for the scandal. You can look that one up.
As far as the ‘stereotype’ of wealthy Asians: The NOVA areas feeding students into TJ are indeed quite wealthy areas (where three middle schools used to – and presumably still based on ‘open‘ non-school based slots – fill the majority of the TJ spots). Additionally, the TJ school staff was rightly concerned that admitted Asian students were spending (what the staff considered to be) excessive amounts of (time and) money on prepping to get into TJ.
Some here seem to think it laudable that young middle school students would spend nearly every waking hour doing schoolwork to prep for an advanced high school, but the TJ teaching staff rightly disagreed and apparently found it counterproductive.