Educators Peer Over Students’ Shoulders at Mich. Math Lab
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Group Forms 45% Of Freshmen at Thomas Jefferson
On the high school level, more public magnet schools are adopting objective merit-based systems as race-based policies are being overturned in courts.
The Fairfax School Board has adjusted the Thomas Jefferson High School admissions policy over time to reflect legal decisions and changing politics. An affirmative action policy that allowed racial and ethnic variations in academic benchmarks was abandoned in the late 1990s. Afterward, admissions of black and Hispanic students plummeted. In 2001, nine black or Hispanic students were admitted, down from nearly 50 in 1994, according to the board's Minority Student Achievement Oversight Committee.
On the high school level, more public magnet schools are adopting objective merit-based systems as race-based policies are being overturned in courts. A Chinese American student sued the San Francisco Unified School District in the 1990s after he was rejected from Lowell High, leading to a court decision that overturned the school system's quota-based admissions. And race preferences at Boston Latin, the Massachusetts city's most prestigious school, were struck down by a federal appeals court a decade ago in a case brought by the father of a white applicant who was rejected.