Supreme Court Takes Up Montgomery County Magnet School Admissions Appeal
The US Supreme Court agreed to consider whether to make it easier to challenge public school admissions policies as racially discriminatory, accepting an appeal regarding Maryland’s largest school district, Bloomberg Law News reported. The justices announced they will hear a challenge to the admissions system used at four magnet middle schools in Montgomery County, a wealthy suburb of Washington, DC.
Racial-preference opponents are pressing the high court to extend its landmark 2023 ruling that barred universities from using race in admissions for diversity purposes. That decision left open questions regarding race-neutral policies that alter a school’s racial composition without explicitly considering race. The new case asks the justices to review whether lower courts can dismiss claims of intentional discrimination if a policy does not disproportionately harm Asian American applicants, according to Reuters reporting published by US News & World Report.
Lottery System and Local Norming at Center of Dispute
The legal battle centers on a selection process introduced during the 2021-2022 school year, which replaced an earlier system that emphasized grades and test scores. The Association for Education Fairness, a parent coalition represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, sued in 2020 over the prior policy and later amended its challenge to target the lottery system. The parents argue that the current setup penalizes Asian American students by utilizing a metric called “local norming” to determine academic qualification for the admissions lottery. Under this process, a student’s performance is ranked against peers whose family incomes are at a similar level. The challengers contend this system suppresses Asian American enrollment because those students disproportionately attend high-performing, low-poverty elementary schools.
US District Judge Paula Xinis threw out the lawsuit in 2022, ruling that the policy did not place a disproportionate burden on Asian American applicants. Xinis noted that the percentage of admitted Asian American students exceeded their share of the total applicant pool, and found no evidence of discriminatory intent by school officials. The Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that dismissal, concluding that the policy does not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and does not disparately impact Asian American students.
School District Defense and Prior Court Actions
Montgomery County urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal, arguing that Asian American students are admitted to the magnet schools at a higher rate than any other racial group. The district maintained that the parents’ group failed to present any statements or conduct indicating that officials intentionally discriminated against Asian American applicants. The school district’s selection process screens all students for academic potential before placing qualified candidates into a random lottery.
The high court previously turned away similar challenges to admissions policies at elite public high schools in Boston and Fairfax County, Virginia, in 2024. During those prior decisions, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted they would have granted review. The current Maryland case, docketed as Association for Educational Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 26-12, will be scheduled for oral arguments next year, with a ruling expected by the end of June.
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