Supreme Court to Review K–12 Admissions Policies

Three years after it put an end to “race-conscious” college admissions, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to take on the issue of whether K–12 public school districts can use hidden demographic quotas to limit access to elite middle and high schools.

This move comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s significant 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, which deemed that DEI admissions at institutions like Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

On Monday, the Justices agreed to review a case that lower courts had dismissed, which was brought by Asian American parents. They argue that the Montgomery County Public Schools restructured its selective magnet admissions process to circumvent constitutional protections and intentionally restrict Asian American students’ enrollment.

In Montgomery County, Maryland—a suburban area near Washington, D.C.—students are in competition for limited spots at four prestigious magnet middle schools. Back in 2020, school officials seized the opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to eliminate merit-based testing and instead implement an admissions lottery.

Now, eligibility for this lottery isn’t based on general achievement across the district; test scores are compared within elementary schools divided by poverty levels.

This shift means that high-achieving Asian American students, who often attend lower-poverty elementary schools, face a much tougher academic standard compared to their peers in different parts of the county just to qualify for the lottery.

As a result, Asian American enrollment in two of the district’s leading magnet programs declined sharply after these changes were made, although school officials have noted an increase in enrollment in the other two programs.

“Here, where the challenged policy is not keyed to race, was adopted because of a global pandemic, and relies on a random lottery for ultimate selection, it is not plausible to consider Asian Americans systematically excluded from the magnet schools,” lawyers for the district asserted in a filing.

While lower courts dismissed claims from the Association for Education Fairness asserting that the policy violates the Equal Protection Clause, the Montgomery County school board claims to the Supreme Court that the matter is “unremarkable and of little significance” regarding proper evidentiary standards.

It’s reported that Montgomery County still evaluates students based on grades and test scores. However, in the second stage of admissions, the county employs a lottery system to choose which students gain entry to the magnet school.

“Yet the governing constitutional standard now depends on geography,” the group’s lawyers pointed out. “Evidence sufficient to establish an Equal Protection claim in some circuits is legally irrelevant in others.”

The board’s lawyers noted, “This case involves a race-neutral lottery adopted in response to a global pandemic. It is not the right fact pattern for this Court to take up the question presented.”

Chris Kieser, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is advocating for the parents, stated that “every family deserves admissions rules that judge their child on their own merit.”

“The Constitution protects students as individuals, not as members of a racial group,” Kieser added. “A school district should not be able to defeat a discrimination claim by showing that its policy did not harm enough Asian American children. Every family deserves admissions rules that judge their child on their own merit.”

This case is slated to be heard in the current term, with oral arguments anticipated next year and a ruling expected by the end of June.