The has made clear that racial discrimination has no place in public school admissions. But when schools hide discrimination behind race-neutral policies, lower courts have let them get away with it â as long as the targeted racial group isnt hurt too much.
On Oct. 19, the court agreed to hear a case brought by parents in Montgomery County, Md., challenging an admissions policy designed to reduce Asian American enrollment at the countys . At stake is a fundamental question: Does the Constitution protect students as individuals, or do their rights depend on how others of their race perform?
With this case, the Supreme Court could reverse a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals precedent that Justice Alito once called “flagrantly wrong” and “a virus that may spread if not promptly eliminated.”
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This isnt a small procedural question. Its fundamental. Does the protect us as individuals? Or do our rights depend on the outcomes of racial groups?
Montgomery County is a suburb of Washington, D.C., straddling the Capital Beltway and home to at least 10 federal agencies. Its school system is one of the largest in the country and includes four magnet middle schools for gifted students.
In 2015, Montgomery Countys school system hired consultants to examine the racial makeup of its gifted programs, including its magnet schools. At the time, Asian American students made up nearly half the enrollment at these four schools, which admitted students based on grades, a cognitive abilities test and teacher recommendations.
The consultants reported “significant racial and socioeconomic disparities” at the schools. Black and Hispanic students were underrepresented compared to their countywide enrollment numbers. Montgomery County should “revise the criteria and process used to select students,” the consultants urged. How? By introducing “non-cognitive criteria” and “group-specific norms” into the selection process.
The Board of Education listened. One board member described his vision for the magnet program “not simply as a matter of creating opportunity and having that be blind and neutral, but in fact, ensuring there were controls so that in fact those choices could reflect the community that we live in.” Privilege, he warned, “is not going to go away.”
Now there is a lottery for Montgomery County magnet schools â but its not an open lottery. It has controls meant to produce a specific outcome. To be eligible, students must score in the 85th percentile on a Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, with percentiles “locally normed” so students are measured against a cluster of peers.
The result: Students in certain school clusters â those with high Asian American enrollment â need to score in the 93rd districtwide percentile to be eligible for the magnet lottery. At other schools, a child only needs to score in the 60th district-wide percentile.
This new process certainly looks like a calculat
