Law & Justice

Supreme Court to Review Alleged Racial Bias in Montgomery County Magnet School Admissions

By Al Jazeera Staff

A group of parents has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to examine whether the admission policy for four selective magnet schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, discriminates against Asian students in favor of Black and Latino students. The high court agreed on Monday to hear the parents’ appeal and will decide whether the plaintiffs have sufficient evidence of discrimination to proceed. Lower courts had dismissed the case, noting that Asian‑American students were not underrepresented among those admitted to the schools compared with the applicant pool. If the Supreme Court sides with the Association for Education Fairness, the lawsuit could be revived. Arguments are expected in the coming months, with a decision anticipated by June.

The Montgomery County school district introduced its selection process, dubbed the “Pandemic Plan,” during the 2021‑2022 school year amid the COVID‑19 pandemic. The plan screens all students for academic potential and then uses a lottery to assign students from that pool to receive enriched instruction at either a magnet school or a local school. The suit claims that the screening makes it harder for Asian‑American students, who are said to be concentrated in high‑performing, low‑poverty elementary schools, to enter the lottery pool. Part of the process ranks a student’s performance by comparing test scores with those of other students whose family incomes are at a similar level. The plaintiffs argue that under the applicant‑pool benchmark, the government can set specific racial targets, meet them, and avoid scrutiny for discriminatory intent as long as race is not explicitly mentioned in the process.

The case was dismissed in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who noted that the percentage of admitted Asian‑American students exceeded the percentage of Asian Americans among all applicants to the magnet schools and found no evidence of discriminatory intent in the lottery policy. The school system has maintained that the new admissions policy is race‑neutral, describing it as a “colorblind lottery.” In a brief asking the Supreme Court not to take up the case, the district’s lawyers stated that nothing about the Pandemic Plan, its history, or its purpose is offensive to the Constitution. The Supreme Court will now assess whether a group claiming to be targeted by a race‑neutral policy must demonstrate disproportionate harm to prove intentional discrimination.