Supreme Court to Hear Race-Based Challenge to Magnet School Admissions

Three years after the Supreme Court ended the use of race-conscious admissions at universities, the court will decide when parents can challenge the admission policies of prestigious middle and high schools.

The dispute is over whether parents can sue if Asian Americans are still getting in more often than other students − even if fewer are being admitted after the admissions criteria changed.

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“Here, where the challenged policy is not keyed to race, was adopted because of a global pandemic, and relies on a random lottery for ultimate selection, it is not plausible to consider Asian Americans systematically excluded from the magnet schools,” the district’s lawyers wrote in a filing.

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The factors that determine whether a student can enter the lottery include how the student performed on standardized tests compared with others from elementary schools with similar poverty levels.

Because Asian-American students are clustered in low-poverty elementary schools, it’s harder for them to qualify for the lottery, the parents challenging the policy argue.

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