Supreme Court to hear case on race in middle school admissions
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Court → hear → admissions
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about race in middle school admissions
WASHINGTON --
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Court → agree → admissions
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case about the role race plays in middle school admissions, three years after a majority on the high court struck down affirmative action in college admissions.
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majority → agree → admissions
The case involves admissions to four selective middle schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, a diverse suburb of Washington, D.C.
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case → involve → Washington
A group of parents said in a lawsuit that the district's admissions policy to four magnet schools is designed to boost the admission of Black and Latino students while disadvantaging Asian American kids.
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policy → say → kids
The high court said Monday it will weigh if the parent group has enough evidence of discrimination for the case to move forward.
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case → say → discrimination
The case was originally dismissed because Asian American students were not underrepresented compared with their share of the applicant pool.
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students → dismiss → pool
Justices will now consider whether a group claiming to be targeted by a race-neutral policy must show it was disproportionately harmed in order to prove intentional discrimination.
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it → consider → discrimination
If the court rules for the parent group, the Association for Education Fairness, it could revive the lawsuit.
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it → rule → lawsuit
The lawsuit originates from a change in admissions policy that began a decade ago, when a consulting group was hired to evaluate how the school system chose students for its middle school magnet programs.
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system → originate → programs
The district then changed its admissions policies, factoring the poverty levels of the schools the students attended into the process.
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students → change → process
The share of Asian American students, who were clustered in more affluent, high-performing schools, subsequently fell.
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who → cluster → schools
The parent group sued in 2020.
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group → sue → 2020
Not long after, the school system, which educates more than 150,000 students, changed its admissions practices to eliminate an extra in-person exam.
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which → educate → exam
Now, students qualify for a lottery according to their performance on standardized tests.
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students → qualify → tests
But students in more affluent schools, where Asian American students are concentrated, must perform better on the standardized exam to enter the lottery.
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students → concentrate → lottery
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.
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Court → affirm → case
In its ruling, the court said the parent group had failed to show that Asian Americans students were harmed, because they were still being admitted at higher rates than the applicant pool.
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they → say → pool
The Fourth Circuit was relying on a recent ruling in a different school admissions case, where parents challenged admissions practices at a highly selective magnet high school in Virginia.
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parents → rely → Virginia
Those parents lost in part because Asian American students were still overrepresented relative to the applicant pool.
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students → lose → pool
The attorneys for the Montgomery County parents argued it's not enough to compare whether a targeted racial group is represented fairly compared with the group of students who apply.
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who → argue → students
Other evidence of discrimination should also be considered, they wrote.
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they → consider → discrimination
“Under the applicant pool benchmark, the government can set specific racial targets, hit them, and avoid even an inquiry into discriminatory intent," so long as it hasn't explicitly called out race in its process, they wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court.
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they → set → Court
The school system has consistently argued the new admissions policy, called the Pandemic Plan due to the timing of its release, is race-neutral.
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policy → argue → release
“The Pandemic Plan is a colorblind lottery,” attorneys wrote in a brief asking the Supreme Court not to take up the case.
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attorneys → write → case
The court is expected to hear arguments in the coming months.
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court → expect → months
The Aporia
