TJ Discrimination Case

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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


It strains credulity to suggest the Board members would just exchange messages that the words and actions of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, unless they had something of a guilty conscience about what they were doing.

And of course the current process was not crafted on a "blank slate," when Brabrand expressly stated that the key driver of the admissions change was the George Floyd incident. It's not like they objectively sat back and asked themselves how they could craft a more efficient process or one designed to identify more qualified kids. They rushed through a process that they convinced themselves would serve "equity" goals, with multiple Board members stating that they believed the process had been rushed and less than satisfactory. And then, once approved, some Board members admitted that they didn't even understand the details of what they'd just approved, such as whether the 1.5% middle school quotas would be based on the schools to which students were zoned or instead those which they were attending.

Those who panned Judge Hilton's decision are, for the most part, far from "nonpartisan," but instead were drawn from the same stable of commentators on whom the liberal media regularly draws upon to comment on judicial cases. At this point, most believe that the Fourth Circuit, with its current composition, will overturn Hilton's decision, but that the Fourth Circuit's decision will also be appealed and may ultimately get reconsidered by the more conservative Supreme Court.

And if you want to refer to Harry Jackson as a "goon," that is certainly your prerogative, although you might be kinder, given that he's one of the very few Black men ever to have run or considered a run for the FCPS School Board. But, in that case, let's also not forget that the current Board members include:

* A dude without a college degree who found a way to waste over $35 million in county money on an unnecessary elementary school in Dunn Loring (Frisch);

* A member repeatedly on the record as having used the r-word when frustrated or not getting her way (Keys Gamarra);

* A wealthy hypocrite who ran as a Democrat, but since has done nothing but protect the interests of the county's wealthiest in Great Falls and narrowly escaped a recall (Tholen);

* A member who got into an unnecessary and avoidable confrontation with police and then, once in office, made anti-Semitic statements and urged students to wage "jihad" (Omeish);

* A cringe-inducing narcissist who has used her seat on the School Board to promote her son's musical career (Sizemore Heizer);

* A member who has failed for years to address the severe overcrowding at a high school in her district (Pekarsky); and

* A woman who claimed her appreciation for Asian culture stemmed from having eaten at a Benihana steak house as a child and kept FCPS closed for many months while enrolling her own kids in a learning pod (Meren); and

* A host of other members who have brought little to the table for years, such as Corbett-Sanders and Derenak-Kaufax.


Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):

- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;

- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;

- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"

Yeah, what KKG did was abhorrent and she got appropriately called out for it. Probably should have lost her office or resigned as a result. But she hasn't rescinded her apology or doubled down on some excuse for what she did.

The fact that Harry Jackson happens to be Black doesn't excuse him for being a consistently horrible human being. One of these days I hope he realizes he would be better served by being forgotten and irrelevant. But I've got my popcorn ready for everything that will come out when he's officially a candidate.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


These are two separate items. I am the most vocal and well-informed pro-reform advocate on this board, and I will be the first to tell you that the process to get to this change was VERY problematic and that the current system is far from perfect. I've actually suggested a number of reforms to the admissions system (re-engineered teacher recommendation forms, 1% allocations, optional exam submissions) that have been broadly popular on this site even amongst folks who profess to be anti-reform.

But the process was absolutely adopted on a blank slate by my definition because it bears no resemblance to the old process. Yes, there was a political backdrop, but there was also a practical backdrop - an exam could not have been assessed in any realistic way during the worst depths of the pandemic or the ensuing Delta variant without putting thousands of kids and administrators in harm's way. So they had to start from scratch, and that is the blank slate to which I'm referring.

The behavior of the School Board is one thing and has been QUITE sloppy to say the least, but the admissions process as currently constructed stands on its own and was narrowly tailored to withstand legal scrutiny. The "factual basis for their concerns" that you reference is the obvious reality that Brabrand put his foot in his mouth several times when he shouldn't have and made numerous miscalculations in the rollout of both the Merit Lottery and present process that could be easily read as anti-Asian when in fact they were pro-access.

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Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


It strains credulity to suggest the Board members would just exchange messages that the words and actions of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, unless they had something of a guilty conscience about what they were doing.

And of course the current process was not crafted on a "blank slate," when Brabrand expressly stated that the key driver of the admissions change was the George Floyd incident. It's not like they objectively sat back and asked themselves how they could craft a more efficient process or one designed to identify more qualified kids. They rushed through a process that they convinced themselves would serve "equity" goals, with multiple Board members stating that they believed the process had been rushed and less than satisfactory. And then, once approved, some Board members admitted that they didn't even understand the details of what they'd just approved, such as whether the 1.5% middle school quotas would be based on the schools to which students were zoned or instead those which they were attending.

Those who panned Judge Hilton's decision are, for the most part, far from "nonpartisan," but instead were drawn from the same stable of commentators on whom the liberal media regularly draws upon to comment on judicial cases. At this point, most believe that the Fourth Circuit, with its current composition, will overturn Hilton's decision, but that the Fourth Circuit's decision will also be appealed and may ultimately get reconsidered by the more conservative Supreme Court.

And if you want to refer to Harry Jackson as a "goon," that is certainly your prerogative, although you might be kinder, given that he's one of the very few Black men ever to have run or considered a run for the FCPS School Board. But, in that case, let's also not forget that the current Board members include:

* A dude without a college degree who found a way to waste over $35 million in county money on an unnecessary elementary school in Dunn Loring (Frisch);

* A member repeatedly on the record as having used the r-word when frustrated or not getting her way (Keys Gamarra);

* A wealthy hypocrite who ran as a Democrat, but since has done nothing but protect the interests of the county's wealthiest in Great Falls and narrowly escaped a recall (Tholen);

* A member who got into an unnecessary and avoidable confrontation with police and then, once in office, made anti-Semitic statements and urged students to wage "jihad" (Omeish);

* A cringe-inducing narcissist who has used her seat on the School Board to promote her son's musical career (Sizemore Heizer);

* A member who has failed for years to address the severe overcrowding at a high school in her district (Pekarsky); and

* A woman who claimed her appreciation for Asian culture stemmed from having eaten at a Benihana steak house as a child and kept FCPS closed for many months while enrolling her own kids in a learning pod (Meren); and

* A host of other members who have brought little to the table for years, such as Corbett-Sanders and Derenak-Kaufax.


Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):

- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;

- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;

- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"

Yeah, what KKG did was abhorrent and she got appropriately called out for it. Probably should have lost her office or resigned as a result. But she hasn't rescinded her apology or doubled down on some excuse for what she did.

The fact that Harry Jackson happens to be Black doesn't excuse him for being a consistently horrible human being. One of these days I hope he realizes he would be better served by being forgotten and irrelevant. But I've got my popcorn ready for everything that will come out when he's officially a candidate.


It would be best if there were fresh candidates who are neither on the current Board nor as enmeshed in the never-ending culture wars and TJ-related fights as Harry Jackson.

That would also disqualify left-wing activists like Sujatha Hampton, Jennifer Litton Todd, Vanessa Winter Hall, Jorge Torrico, Julie Strandlie, Andrew Hayes, etc.

Will we get that? Probably not.


I haven't heard word one to suggest that any of those folks are considering a run for the School Board. And I know a couple of them personally.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem


Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.

Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.

However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem


Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.

Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.

However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.


^ That's not to say most voters in Mason and Mount Vernon won't vote for Democratic-endorsed candidates because, well, that's the lever they always pull. But most won't do it out of any big sense of gratitude over admissions changes at TJ.
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Punishing, setting back, excluding or demoting anybody with equal or greater accomplishments based on the features on their head or skin color is illegal .
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem


Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.

Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.

However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.


There have never been kids from the Lee or south county districts in any significant numbers prior to the change and it isn't fanciful to suggest that an area that generally feels ignored and neglected by county government (come out to any of our public hearings, and that is usually the main complaint) will vote for representatives who are doing something for the kids living in their district.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem


Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.

Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.

However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.


Irrespective of the actual motivations behind the changes, it's important to note that there are absolutely pedagogical benefits to a class of students that has meaningful racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and experiential diversity. That's not up for debate among people who are seriously invested in education policy for the benefit of students. The white and Asian students at TJ will receive incalculable benefits from simply existing in spaces with students from backgrounds to which they've never been exposed, both inside and outside the classroom. No longer will you have TJ students whose first experience with more than one Black student in a classroom comes in college. And the Black students at TJ won't have to spend their entire careers never sharing a classroom with someone who looks like them.

A fair reminder of how stark the Black representation problem was prior to the admissions changes:

The number of Asian students in the Class of 2024 alone was larger than the total number of Black students who had ever been admitted to TJ in its 35-year history, and by a significant margin.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem


Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.

Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.

However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.


There have never been kids from the Lee or south county districts in any significant numbers prior to the change and it isn't fanciful to suggest that an area that generally feels ignored and neglected by county government (come out to any of our public hearings, and that is usually the main complaint) will vote for representatives who are doing something for the kids living in their district.


As with any decision about how to vote, it will be motivated by several factors, of which this is certainly one. Not having their kids go to schools that are named after Confederate generals - which conservatives love to rail about but was a relatively small drop in the bucket in terms of time and resources - is another big factor.
Anonymous


Nope. He (perhaps...you? Although the above is more in Glenn's voice than Harry's):

"- made fun of an autistic kid performing the national anthem at a School Board meeting, claiming he didn't know the kid was autistic as if that would have made it any better;"


Valid criticism. He didn't know. The performance interrupted the live stream and no one knew what was going on or why that performance was being played.

- got caught red-handed creating a Twitter profile for a dead toddler and tweeted at his mom on the anniversary of his death;


This is a bald-faced lie. Do you have ANY evidence that he ever did this or is this merely a projection of your unconstrained rage towards a person who is a minority not toeing to Marxist ideology?

- falsely accused a TJ alum of "grooming" while colluding with a guy who has been banned from TJ's campus to invite high school students to private chatrooms for "unfiltered discussion"


I don't think so. Google 'Jorge Torrico AND Pedophile' and the search results are interesting. Keep in mind, Jorge came after Harry and he only defended himself in the court of law.

"Torrico had made a pass at a high school senior, inquiring about “equity” in a leadership event aimed at middle schoolers. Torrico gave his email to the high school senior to apparently help coordinate the event with children"
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/soros-backed-prosecutor-hits-black-father-with-criminal-charges-for-calling-out-grooming-of-children-in-virginia-high-school/
https://wp-updates.dailywire.com/news/dad-facing-criminal-charges-for-accusing-woke-activist-of-grooming

"Soros-Backed Prosecutor Hits Black Father with Criminal Charges for Calling Out ‘Grooming’ of Children in Virginia High School"
https://www.maga.black/articles/soros-backed-prosecutor-hits-black-father-with-criminal-charges-for-calling-out-grooming-of-children-in-virginia-high-school
https://headlineusa.com/soros-da-brings-charges-against-pta-dad-over-grooming-accusation/




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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


These are two separate items. I am the most vocal and well-informed pro-reform advocate on this board, and I will be the first to tell you that the process to get to this change was VERY problematic and that the current system is far from perfect. I've actually suggested a number of reforms to the admissions system (re-engineered teacher recommendation forms, 1% allocations, optional exam submissions) that have been broadly popular on this site even amongst folks who profess to be anti-reform.

But the process was absolutely adopted on a blank slate by my definition because it bears no resemblance to the old process. Yes, there was a political backdrop, but there was also a practical backdrop - an exam could not have been assessed in any realistic way during the worst depths of the pandemic or the ensuing Delta variant without putting thousands of kids and administrators in harm's way. So they had to start from scratch, and that is the blank slate to which I'm referring.

The behavior of the School Board is one thing and has been QUITE sloppy to say the least, but the admissions process as currently constructed stands on its own and was narrowly tailored to withstand legal scrutiny. The "factual basis for their concerns" that you reference is the obvious reality that Brabrand put his foot in his mouth several times when he shouldn't have and made numerous miscalculations in the rollout of both the Merit Lottery and present process that could be easily read as anti-Asian when in fact they were pro-access.



I appreciate what you're saying here and don't doubt for an instant that FCPS had lawyers involved trying to help them craft a new process that would withstand judicial scrutiny.

However, at the end of the day, courts can and do "look behind" a particular policy and consider the factual background. So you can define "blank slate" however you see fit for your purposes, but it does not mean the court has to follow your definition or is precluded from considering the factual background, which included not only the instances where, as you say, "Brabrand put his foot in his mouth," but also other exchanges where FCPS officials mapped out the anticipated racial impact of different alternatives under consideration.
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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.


That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.


The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.


It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.


True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.


A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.


This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.


I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.


Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.



It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.


Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.


It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.


I wouldn’t hold your breath since the case isn’t even before SCOTUS.


The legality of use of 'race' for public and private school is before the SCOTUS! SCOTUS' decision will be binding on all private and public schools in the US.


It won’t necessarily be clear how these decisions apply, if at all, to an admissions policy like the new TJ admissions policy that on its face is race-neutral.


We have a US District Court's factual finding that there was a racial discrimination that was unconstitutional and no Court has reversed that ruling. Pretty clear.


No court has reversed it, but a higher court quickly invalidated its order and the activist Supreme Court declined to intervene. Pretty strong statements and part of the reason that the District Court judge hasn’t been promoted in 40 years on the bench.


Actually, The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has NOT ruled on the appeal and they merely stayed the implementation of the District Court's Order and the SCOTUS has decided not to intervene in the case yet and we will have to see what happens at the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Harvard case will impact the eventual ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals since they are legally bound by the SCOTUS' decisions! The US District Court's Order stands period.


If their order stood, the Admissions process for the Class of 2027, which is currently underway, wouldn’t be allowed to proceed. The stay, however temporary it is, will remain in place until the same three-judge panel that implemented the stay reverses the ruling.

Harvard and UNC will have no bearing on TJ because those schools use race directly in the admissions process. FCPS, despite a lot of rather obvious misinformation here, does not with respect to TJ.


It's misinformation for you to say the district court ruling's no longer "stands." It has simply been stayed by the Fourth Circuit pending appeal, which is typical. Given the fact that the current SCOTUS is an activist conservative court, some expected the Court to intervene and overturn the stay, but it declined to do so at this juncture (which again is typical).

It's also not accurate to say the Harvard and UNC cases will have "no bearing" on TJ. Even though those schools, unlike FCPS, use race directly in their admissions processes, there may be language in those decisions that affect how the lower courts ultimately decide to address the TJ case.

Finally, one should not lose sight of the fact that the AG investigation into potential violations of the Virginia Human Rights Act will be a distinct matter from the case alleging a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Even if FCPS is found not to have violated the Constitution in the federal case, FCPS may yet be found to have violated the VHRA, which could give rise to sanctions on FCPS.

Short version: FCPS is going to have a lot on its plate to defend when it comes to TJ for a long time.


DP. You are grasping at straws here.


So you wish. In case you haven't noticed, FCPS hasn't been doing too well in the courts on many fronts lately.


They're winning on this one.


No, they lost at the District Court level and we are waiting for the Court of Appeals to rule on the merits.


The only impact of FCPS having "lost" anything to this point in this mess is that the Class of 2026 was seated somewhat later than it should have been because of the delay caused by the initial, since-stayed ruling.

The Coalition has won literally zero in terms of action items. That's great for them that they've gotten a sympathetic state government to engage in an investigation, but the investigation is going to turn up a clerical error.


The state AG investigation is examining both (1) the change in admissions policy and (2) the delayed notification to recipients of Letters of Commendation.

Whatever it finds, it will be more than a "clerical error" relating to the latter. It doesn't help your cause to misrepresent the scope of the state investigation.


This is just another GOP goose chase that will yield nothing but it will help rally Youngkin's extreme far-right base.


The issue with the change in admissions policy is that the policy is race-neutral on its face, but animated by animosity towards Asian kids and White politicians thinking they can curry favor with Blacks and Hispanic voters by treating Asian kids not as individuals but as members of an “over-represented” group and throwing them under the bus.

That’s a tough issue to address legally. If you think the current admissions policy would have been acceptable if crafted on a blank slate, without the factual record indicating the racial hostility towards Asians, then what is the path forward? It feels like judicial overreach to lock FCPS into its prior admissions policy, but a bit of a farce to tell FCPS to go back to the drawing board, in which case FCPS could re-adopt its current policy with the School Board members presumably under strict instructions not to admit the anti-Asian bias, call TJ with an Asian super-majority “toxic,” or the like.

So at some level it does all feel more political than legal, but it’s not just the “extreme far-right base” that will look at this and be appalled by the behavior of the School Board and past administrators like Brabrand. It seems the real goal is to effect change in the governance of FCPS and, on that score, the conservatives may yet lose a battle but win a war.


There isn't a factual record indicating racial hostility towards Asians. There is a factual record of School Board members exchanging messages of concern that the actions and words of Brabrand and the Board could be interpreted as anti-Asian, which is a very different matter. And yeah, Brabrand 100% goofed his way through this when he should have left the communication of the new policy completely in the hands of the Admissions Office, who is actually trained to deal with stuff like this.

Like it or not, the current admissions process was indeed crafted on a blank slate. There are almost no tangible aspects of the former process in the new process, apart from the method of collecting applications and on some level, the Student Portrait/Information Sheet... but even that is evaluated differently. They crafted an entire new process with a significant eye towards being able to withstand legal scrutiny, once the old poorly-conceived Merit Lottery proposal went by the wayside (thank goodness). And they did so successfully, notwithstanding Judge Hilton's hilariously erroneous decision that has been broadly panned by nonpartisan legal analysts.

It's possible that the conservatives in Fairfax County may screw up what should be a glorious opportunity to gain a few seats on the School Board with the goons that they're presently looking at nominating. If Harry Jackson is the best that they can do in the Hunter Mill District, with all of the skeletons in his closet that haven't even come to light yet... it's going to be a very sad November for the wildly out-of-touch Fairfax GOP.


U.S. District Court factually found Asian students were illegally discriminated and that such action violated the U.S. Constitution. Misrepresenting a million times won't change this fact. Just say I hope and pray for the Court of Appeal's decision you agree with.

In addition, you neglected to mention all the statements and actions by the TJ principal over the past several years that were clearly hostile towards Asian TJ students and that some SB members AGREED with the observation that some of the actions were 'anti-asian'. So, it was not just saying such a statement but also AGREEING to such statements.


1) With respect to the bolded, no such statements exist. At all.

2) With respect to what follows the bolded, the SB members’ texts explicitly referenced the perception of the comments and not the comments themselves. Try again.


There were comments leading up to the change by people other than the beleaguered Bonitatibus that also gave rise to the messages exchanged among School Board members that the Board's actions could be perceived as anti-Asian.

Again, not even people as dense as some the members of this School Board speculate idly about public perceptions of their actions without some factual basis for their concerns.

To keep implying that the School Board went about the process for changing the admissions process properly, and that the new process was in fact adopted on a blank slate, is only the type of argument that a lawyer for FCPS or a shill for the FCDC (which endorsed the current SB members) might make. It doesn't align with reality. Whether or not the conduct ultimately is found to violate the Constitution has yet to be determined, but the School Board has already lost in the "court of public opinion" in some circles, and trying to sugar coat what a nakedly political decision the admissions change was is not going to help in those venues.


Not everyone agrees with the "public opinion" that a 1.5% for each MS approach is the wrong concept to break up the fact that like 2 or 3 pyramids were sending almost all the kids.


There were never "like 2 or 3 pyramids * * * sending almost all the kids." Now you're just actively pushing misinformation in a way consistent with the observation that the change was motivated by a sad combination of racial animosity and rank populism. Claiming 2 or 3 pyramids with a lot of Asian kids (Carson, Longfellow, Rocky Run) were "sending almost all the kids" to TJ, which is just false, doesn't sound all that different from hateful anti-Semitic remarks made in other contexts.

If FCPS had first put AAP in every middle school and screened consistently for AAP, and then had a 1.5% quota for middle school, it would have been more defensible. Encouraging more talented kids to attend AAP centers, but then having the same quota for kids at both AAP centers and non-AAP centers, was ridiculous, given TJ's purpose.


Kids living in the south and eastern parts of the county never had any representation at TJ, now they at least have some. Good luck convincing those voters that the new policy is a problem


Another lie. There have always been kids in the southern and eastern parts of the county at TJ, although the quota system boosts their numbers.

Otherwise, you're just confirming that the TJ admissions changes were done for political rather than pedagogical reasons. TJ is nowbasically a spoils system - a benefit to be allocated across pyramids like pork-barrel projects in a Senate appropriation bill - and no longer a school intended to serve the students with the most STEM aptitude and achievements.

However, given how few county students overall attend or benefit from TJ, it's fanciful to suggest voters from, say, the Mason and Mount Vernon districts, are going to turn out in droves to support Democratic candidates because there are now 13 kids from Glasgow in a freshman class at TJ rather than 3 or 4. The overwhelming majority of students will still be at other schools, some of which are struggling mightily yet largely ignored.


There have never been kids from the Lee or south county districts in any significant numbers prior to the change and it isn't fanciful to suggest that an area that generally feels ignored and neglected by county government (come out to any of our public hearings, and that is usually the main complaint) will vote for representatives who are doing something for the kids living in their district.


So you've gone from "no representation" to "never * * * in any significant numbers"?

I'm sure pork-barrel politicians like Anderson, Corbett Sanders and Derenak Kaufax (if they run again) will try to make it sound like a big coup that more kids from Mason, Mount Vernon, and Franconia are now at TJ. But it won't move the needle much because most of the voters in those districts automatically vote Democratic without much understanding of school issues and, to the extent they do focus on school issues, what's happening (or is not being addressed, as the case may be) at Annandale, Justice, Falls Church, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, South County, Hayfield, Lewis or Edison matters a hell of a lot more to them than the latest wrinkle at TJ. The School Board members made TJ a big deal, because it matters a lot to the highly partisan FCDC members who control the Democratic endorsements for School Board, but TJ isn't that relevant to the average resident or voter.
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