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Anonymous wrote:PP. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I just want to take a 50,000 ft view of the issues being debated here. The fact that the current Supreme Court, as conservative as they are. still let the new admissions policy stand should be a signal that the war is lost. Even if there will still be changes to the new admissions system, it seems highly unlikely to ever go back to the way it was.
I sympathize with the old admissions system, but I also don't think it was ever appropriate to set up a public school in this way. This is what private schools should be for. A private school can offer financial aid to those who can't afford it.
I also think all TJ parents need to take a step back and consider whether TJ is really the best thing for their kids. Having so many high-achieving kids clumped together in that school actually makes it harder for them to be accepted to a top school. MIT isn't going to admit 50 TJ kids in any given year. It is very much harder to stand out there. I get that iron sharpens iron, but it also comes with a significant risk of having nothing to show for all the effort than if they had just gone to their local high school.
I married into an Asian family, and I know that many times the drive to go TJ is from the parents who demand the kids to go to the "best" school or the "prestigious" school without considering that it is more than likely not going to be the big stepping stone they think it will be. Even the guy who wrote the op-ed in the Washington Post, while I respect his accomplishments, he could gotten into the Naval Academy and had all his success coming from any of the other excellent public schools in the area, because kids do it all the time. It's not like he invented the iPhone or made the next major scientific discovery, which is what the intense nature of TJ would lead one to believe is going to happen.
You must be high. I also don't have a dog in this fight but it's not clear at all that this racist admissions policy will be allowed to stand in the long term. Roberts has been very vocal about his negative view on affirmative action and any other racially motificated government policies that discriminate on the basis of race, even if it is done through proxies of facially neutral measures. Note that the Supreme Court's decision on the application to vacate is not a ruling on the merits of the case, but consideration of procedural/administrative issues. In this case, I suspect that Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh considered the potential impact on the current batch of students if the stay was vacated, because FCPS did not prepare for an alternative admission process. Despite concerns of students having their constitutional rights violated by the new admissions policy, the courts, including SCOTUS, tend to let existing procedures stand unless there was some serious procedural error made in the appeals court.
Now, onto the rest of your points. I don't understand why you find selectivity to be an issue for publicly funded educational institutions. Are you saying there should be no public colleges, and that if we do have public colleges, every single one of them should admit every student that applies? Aside from admissions, there are a lot of achievement-based opportunities and privileges even inside any given public high school. A student doesn't go into the next level of higher math until they've achieved a sufficient grade in a prerequisite class. Just because the bar is often set fairly low doesn't change the fact that there is a bar, and that failing students do not advance. Being able to take the next level class is not automatic, but an earned privilege that is the outcome of some prior achievement. Being able to get into TJ based on demonstrated merit is the same concept in this sense.
The rest of your rationalizing about whether TJ is healthy or unhealthy, and the existence of alternatives is relevant to exactly one person: you. These are subjective opinions and are no more valid than any one else's, including those of parents who find that the rigor of TJ is a great fit for their kids, and that it is the place where their kids can obtain a superior education and be exceptionally well prepared for future studies and professional work in STEM fields.
Lastly, none of what you wrote, regardless of the underlying logic and passion, excuses the fact that the new admissions policy was implemented with racist intent and effect. Shame on you for making excuses for its continued existence.
Well said!
It's not racist to want to include a broader cross section of Fairfax County. Basically anything that reduced Asian representation would be called racist. That people think there can't be a change in policy the might change the racial composition of TJ so Asians aren't 60-70 percent of the school indefinitely seems crazy. It's a public school and its admissions should not be skewed toward people who can afford $4,000 test prep centers. Then those who pay for those prep centers claim their kids are just inherently more intelligent and so more deserving than other kids who don't score as high on the test without equivalent prep. If your kid is so inherently bright, they'll succeed anywhere. Why all the angst?
If that "broader cross section" is done on the basis of race, it is racist and illegal per our laws. Go ask black people "why all the angst" when they were raging against the racist laws during the civil rights movement.
The new policy does not mention race. It's based on allocation slots to various middle schools and a lottery.
For the n-th time for the benefit of the ignorant -
facially neutral policies implemented with racist intent are still illegal.
You'll lose on this.
The intent was to reduce overrepresentation which is not racist. If whites were overrepresented it wouldn't be "racist" to make more opportunities available to members of other groups. I'm reallyt tired of listening to your allegation of "racism" Again, plaintiffs are going to lose on this one.
LOL, racial balancing is unconstitutional and illegal. There is no argument here.
Do some research before you post again.
I practice law in this area. I stand by what I said. And your comment above that "facially neutral policies implemented with racist intent are still illegal" mixes two legal theories, and misstates one of them. Facially neutral policies may discriminate if they have a disparate impact, no 'Intent" is required to find discrimination. And if there is intent, well that's called intentional discrimination - and facially neutral never comes into it.
You can claim to be an astrophysicist and stand by that the sun rises in the west, doesn't make it true. Under strict scrutiny standards, the intent is crucial for determining whether a facially neutral policy is legal even if it has a disparate impact. Finding discrimination is not enough for an action to be illegal/unconstitutional. For this reason, many policies that have demonstrable disparate impact are perfectly legal. Having underlying intent is not the same as intentional discrimination, which is commonly used to reference disparate treatment (as opposed to disparate impact). The "intentional" part of intentional discrimination is in the mechanism of the policy, not the underlying intent. For example, a policy that excludes blacks from entering a room is disparate treatment and is intentional discrimination. I can't believe I have to explain this to a lawyer who claims to practice law in this area, unless by "area" you mean geographical area instead of subject matter.
Pretty sure I've argued more of these cases as a civil rights lawyer than you have. I found that paragraph so incoherent I can't really comment on it, but it doesn't reflect the state of the law. We'll see; the matter isn't going to be litigated here.
Then what's the point of your response? Just to wave your credentials around a bit? I am not a lawyer. You win?
I apologize if it sounded that way. Are you the pp who said you were surprised that you had to explain the basics of discrimination/4th amendment equal protection law to me?
Yes, I am the PP and no that's not what I said. You claimed that racist intent made it intentional discrimination, but this is not true based on my research and laid out my understanding of what intentional discrimination means. If you disagree you can reference any third party definition to support your use of "intentional discrimination." I am open to learning if I have made mistakes but I give very little deference to people's credentials. When I talk to people about subject matter that I am an expert in, I never have to resort to telling people what my credentials are. The facts and logic speak for themselves.
Racial intent, if shown, is direct evidence of discrimination. I really don't know what you're talking about.
A lot of folks on the Coalition side talk as though “racist intent” has been proven in this particular case because of the language in one judge’s opinion - which has been widely panned by dispassionate legal scholars across the political spectrum. It has also been thoroughly destroyed by a higher court judge, who showed pretty concretely in his concurrence why Judge Hilton has been stuck at the District Court level despite a 40-year career, with 20 of those under Republican presidencies.
In no way is it a fact in evidence that the School Board acted with racist intent.
True. The concurring opinion in the 4th Circuit makes clear that Judge anyway saw FCPS's selection methods to be race neutral. And that's the way I read the facts as well. As such, "strict scrutiny" never comes into the picture. The Google U lawyer is just confused.
You are yet another clown and clearly never read the original opinion on summary judgment. The Judge said that while facially neutral, it was enacted for a discriminatory purpose, and therefor strict scrutiny applies. It was literally 2 pages of his opinion. Please read the opinion before you post your nonsense.
And you haven't read the concurring opinion in the 4th Circuit request for a stay. That judge got it right.
And you didn't bother to read the dissent. Tough to call a slam dunk on a 2-1 split panel. Judge Heytens did not think the district court made the right comparison to show disparate impact by simply comparing Asians admitted under the prior process and Asians admitted after the process. He said that was like comparing voter turnout in different elections, which isn't reliable. I do not know why you would agree that he got that fact right. The entire purpose was to make room for others by limiting some of the Asians that dominate the admissions test. He also said that racial balancing using race-neutral policies is permissible with schools because "awareness of consequences" on Asians is not enough to establish intent at the summary judgment phase. The dissent looked at it differently:
"Here, following the Supreme Court’s directive in Arlington Heights, the district
court undertook the “sensitive inquiry” into all “circumstantial and direct evidence” of the
Board’s intent in adopting TJ’s current admissions policy. Vill. of Arlington Heights v.
Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977). The court considered the historical
background, the sequence of events leading to the new policy, departures from normal
procedures in enacting the policy, the disproportionate impact of the policy, and relevant
administrative history, including official and private statements by Board members,
meeting minutes, and reports. See McCrory, 831 F.3d at 220. Based on the undisputed
evidence before it, the district court found that the Board pursued the policy change “at
least in part ‘because of,’ and not merely ‘in spite of,’ its adverse effects” upon Asian
Americans. Pers. Adm’r of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 279 (1979). Specifically, the
court determined that the Board acted with an impermissible racial purpose when it sought
to decrease enrollment of “overrepresented” Asian-American students at TJ to better
“reflect the racial composition” of the surrounding area. As the court explained, Board
member discussions were permeated with racial balancing, as were its stated aims and its
use of racial data to model proposed outcomes.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that racial balancing for its own sake is unconstiutiona."
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