New TJ Lawsuit Filed 3/10/21 by Pacific Legal Foundation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming arguendo plaintiffs “win” in district court, the Fourth Circuit is locked down liberal. So it would be reversed. Gets to Supreme Court. 5-4 Fourth Circuit upheld. FCPS wins. Long game.

If that happens, then that would be institutionalizing racism, and we would literally be confirming that we are now a socialist country.

With the amount of actual racism that Asians face in this country, you'd think they would be able to interpret what is and is not racism. The removal of a standardized exam as a metric is antiracist.

Their reason for doing it is to reduce the number of Asians.

This is true in the same sense that when colleges decided to start admitting women, they were doing it to reduce the number of men.

Which is to say, you can read it that way if you want, and there will definitely be an impact on the number of Asians because they are so profoundly dominant at the school currently - but really, that's not why they're doing it.

Remember once upon a time we as a society believed that women were less capable of doing well in higher education.

This is not a good analogy because they didn't lower standards to let women in. Women weren't allowed in on a systemic basis, and then policy changed to allow them in. Standards of excellence didn't change. In the TJ situation, there is no prohibition against any race. All races have an opportunity to gain entrance, on a race blind basis. In order to change the racial composition, standards are being lowered. That is the rub.

I think there is a persistent belief among Asian-Americans that this would not be happening if the school were 70% white. While I understand it's a counterfactual, that belief is incorrect. The last time an effort took place that was this broad in scope was in 2001, when TJ WAS about 70% white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming arguendo plaintiffs “win” in district court, the Fourth Circuit is locked down liberal. So it would be reversed. Gets to Supreme Court. 5-4 Fourth Circuit upheld. FCPS wins. Long game.

If that happens, then that would be institutionalizing racism, and we would literally be confirming that we are now a socialist country.

With the amount of actual racism that Asians face in this country, you'd think they would be able to interpret what is and is not racism. The removal of a standardized exam as a metric is antiracist.

Their reason for doing it is to reduce the number of Asians.

This is true in the same sense that when colleges decided to start admitting women, they were doing it to reduce the number of men.

Which is to say, you can read it that way if you want, and there will definitely be an impact on the number of Asians because they are so profoundly dominant at the school currently - but really, that's not why they're doing it.

Remember once upon a time we as a society believed that women were less capable of doing well in higher education.

This is not a good analogy because they didn't lower standards to let women in. Women weren't allowed in on a systemic basis, and then policy changed to allow them in. Standards of excellence didn't change. In the TJ situation, there is no prohibition against any race. All races have an opportunity to gain entrance, on a race blind basis. In order to change the racial composition, standards are being lowered. That is the rub.

Barriers are being lowered and standards are being updated. What they are looking for is fundamentally changing, but you insist on referring to it as "lowered" because it suits your superiority narrative, as though being good at taking tests is somehow a worthwhile skill set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

So? This is pretty much how college admissions works too, as they rightly understand that it's better for their school environment to have students from many different areas and backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

If you don't think you have a snowball's chance in heck of getting in, and you don't have much money to throw around, you're not paying a $100 application fee and you're probably not spending two Saturdays sitting for in-person exams that all of the kids around you paid thousands of dollars and spent hundreds of hours preparing for.

[Anonymous]

It's AMAZING to me how many people on this board believe that every student who is qualified for and would succeed at TJ actually has applied in the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

So? This is pretty much how college admissions works too, as they rightly understand that it's better for their school environment to have students from many different areas and backgrounds.

This policy of geographic distribution was instituted by colleges around 100 years ago because they wanted to keep down the number of Jews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

So? This is pretty much how college admissions works too, as they rightly understand that it's better for their school environment to have students from many different areas and backgrounds.

Colleges do not have max quotas per school. It is one thing to have a minimum quota for each school then a number of at large seats. But they have made it where the schools with lots of Asians are limited to 5 spots, regardless of how many at large spots there are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
To be fair, some of us oppose the changes not because we think the status quo is great, but rather because the changes are ill-conceived and won't accomplish anything. If FCPS wants more URM and lower income kids in TJ, and if they want to eliminate kids who are there purely due to extensive prepping, they should implement much stronger early programming. Strengthen the Young Scholars program. Offer free after school and summer enrichment to kids who otherwise wouldn't receive it. Expand programs like AVID to elementary school to help URM or low income kids succeed in advanced math or AAP. This would lead to more underrepresented kids who could succeed at TJ.
Without this, they're paying lip service to wanting more minorities at TJ, but they're doing nothing to aid them in being qualified for a school like TJ.

They should also keep some degree of testing, but not place so much weight upon it. They could switch tests every year to make it more difficult for people to prep. They could even create their own math test each year. The tests should do two things: detect kids who have deficiencies that make them unlikely to succeed at TJ and detect kids who are so brilliant or advanced that they really need a school like TJ. Most of the non-brilliant, highly prepped kids wouldn't fall into either of those categories, so their prepped scores wouldn't necessarily help them.

and best of all, your kid will already be through TJ by the time we know. That would take a decade to implement and have kids work through with those support in place; we're past the point where the status quo would be acceptable for that long

So then they should just use holistic methods of previous years with a test, and then apply a racial quota. My issue with the proposed system is that it will not lead to more URMs or low income kids being admitted. There are upper middle class kids at every FCPS school. There are Asian and white kids at every school. Having a school based quota just means that less qualified Asian and white kids at underrepresented schools will get in rather than more qualified ones at over-represented schools. It also means that people will just move their families in 7th or 8th grade to game the system. It will accomplish nothing.

Earlier programming will lead to more URMs and low income kids. Quotas will lead to more URMs and low income kids. What FCPS is proposing will not, unless they're going to boost URM applicants up behind the scenes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

So? This is pretty much how college admissions works too, as they rightly understand that it's better for their school environment to have students from many different areas and backgrounds.

Where have you been? Go back a few pages and read the Supreme Court case posted that points out that the rules relaxing race considerations for colleges does not apply to public K-12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: What FCPS is proposing will not, unless they're going to boost URM applicants up behind the scenes.

That is the purpose of the essay. LCPS proposal said the essays would be graded by two reviewers, and the reviewers would be trained to grade based on equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

So? This is pretty much how college admissions works too, as they rightly understand that it's better for their school environment to have students from many different areas and backgrounds.

Where have you been? Go back a few pages and read the Supreme Court case posted that points out that the rules relaxing race considerations for colleges does not apply to public K-12.

Geographic considerations are not racial considerations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How do you know they're inferior? A good number of these may be students who would not have applied to TJ otherwise but will because they feel like there's a chance other kids at their school will go too.

Oh, sure, that's what's stopping people from applying. How about the people who have applied?
Under the new policy it is clear many would be getting in who would not have under the old policy.

Academy of Loudoun has made similar changes, and the waiting list has lots of Stone Hill students who can only go if someone else from Stone Hill doesn't accept a spot.

So? This is pretty much how college admissions works too, as they rightly understand that it's better for their school environment to have students from many different areas and backgrounds.

Where have you been? Go back a few pages and read the Supreme Court case posted that points out that the rules relaxing race considerations for colleges does not apply to public K-12.

The fact that it was posted a few pages ago does not make it relevant or applicable here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
To be fair, some of us oppose the changes not because we think the status quo is great, but rather because the changes are ill-conceived and won't accomplish anything. If FCPS wants more URM and lower income kids in TJ, and if they want to eliminate kids who are there purely due to extensive prepping, they should implement much stronger early programming. Strengthen the Young Scholars program. Offer free after school and summer enrichment to kids who otherwise wouldn't receive it. Expand programs like AVID to elementary school to help URM or low income kids succeed in advanced math or AAP. This would lead to more underrepresented kids who could succeed at TJ.
Without this, they're paying lip service to wanting more minorities at TJ, but they're doing nothing to aid them in being qualified for a school like TJ.

They should also keep some degree of testing, but not place so much weight upon it. They could switch tests every year to make it more difficult for people to prep. They could even create their own math test each year. The tests should do two things: detect kids who have deficiencies that make them unlikely to succeed at TJ and detect kids who are so brilliant or advanced that they really need a school like TJ. Most of the non-brilliant, highly prepped kids wouldn't fall into either of those categories, so their prepped scores wouldn't necessarily help them.

and best of all, your kid will already be through TJ by the time we know. That would take a decade to implement and have kids work through with those support in place; we're past the point where the status quo would be acceptable for that long

So then they should just use holistic methods of previous years with a test, and then apply a racial quota. My issue with the proposed system is that it will not lead to more URMs or low income kids being admitted. There are upper middle class kids at every FCPS school. There are Asian and white kids at every school. Having a school based quota just means that less qualified Asian and white kids at underrepresented schools will get in rather than more qualified ones at over-represented schools. It also means that people will just move their families in 7th or 8th grade to game the system. It will accomplish nothing.

Earlier programming will lead to more URMs and low income kids. Quotas will lead to more URMs and low income kids. What FCPS is proposing will not, unless they're going to boost URM applicants up behind the scenes.

Direct racial quotas are illegal.

[Anonymous]

No but the fact that it is a Supreme Court decision does.