Maryland magnet school pulls Supreme Court back into fight over race in admissions

After tackling the use of race in college admissions, the high court will consider how equal protection applies in the K-12 admissions context.WASHINGTON (CN) — Over three years after gutting college affirmative action programs, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to put admissions policies at a Maryland magnet middle school under the microscope.Montgomery County parents say specialized public schools in the area adopted admissions rules aimed at curbing enrollment from Asian American students. But because admittance of Asian American students outpaced the percentage representation among all applicants, lower courts dismissed their case.The Association for Education Fairness, the parents’ organization, asked the justices to review their case to decide how equal protection applies in the K-12 admissions context.“The Constitution protects students as individuals, not as members of a racial group,” said Chris Kieser, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation representing the parents. “A school district should not be able to defeat a discrimination claim by showing that its policy did not harm enough Asian American children.”In 2017, Montgomery County Public Schools began testing a new admissions protocol for its middle school magnet programs that became known as the field test process. Instead of solely relying on applicant submissions, the schools invited families of high-performing students to apply. And they implemented “local norming” by selecting some students by comparing their academic performance to the performance of other students in the school community with similar economic circumstances.The field test only survived three years before the schools were forced to pivot due to the Covid-19 pandemic. From 2020 onward, Montgomery County Public Schools used lottery-based admissions for middle school magnet programs, abandoning many of the 2017 changes including local norming.The Association for Education Fairness’ lawsuit initially focused on the 2017 field test process, but the group amended their complaint after the lottery-based method was adopted in 2020.Since striking down affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina in 2023, the justices have been asked repeatedly to weigh in on race-neutral alternatives.In 2024, Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, railed against their colleagues’ refusal to review a dispute over programs at an elite Virginia high school.The high court also refused to weigh in West Point’s use of race in its admissions in 2024.Maryland’s case will mark the first return to such cases after SFFA v. Harvard. The justices asked the parents and schools to answer whether plaintiffs challenging a facially neutral admissions policy as racially discriminatory must establish that the targeted racial group suffered an aggregate disparate impact relative to its share of the applicant pool.The high court will likely schedule arguments for early next year and issue a ruling by the end of June.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads