The Trump administration launched an investigation Thursday into the admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, citing a state report that found that the elite program lowered its standards to increase racial diversity at the expense of Asian-American students.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened the probe a day after Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares released the results of a two-year investigation into the 2020 revisions to the prestigious magnet school’s admissions criteria.
His report concluded that the Fairfax County School Board overhauled the admissions policy, including dropping the school’s standardized testing requirements and adopting a “holistic” review process, to reduce the acceptance numbers of Asian-American students.
“At the time, Asian American students had consistently made up over 65% of TJ’s admitted classes,” the Virginia Office of the Attorney General said in a Wednesday statement. “The new policy achieved the Board’s goal: reducing Asian American admission from 73% to 54% — a 19-point drop in just one year.”
The investigation also unearthed internal communications showing that board members were uneasy about the revisions, citing the potential backlash from Asian-American families.
One message said, “Asians hate us.” Another said, “there has been an anti asian feel underlying some of this, hate to say it lol,” and that the superintendent came “right out of the gate blaming Asian students,” the report said.
“The policy was rushed through with last-minute amendments, minimal transparency, and little public input,” said the attorney general’s fact sheet. “One Board member said, in her nine years serving, she could not recall ‘messier execution of Board-level work.’”
Mr. Miyares referred the matter to both the Department of Education and the Department of Justice for enforcement, citing potential violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in education based on race, color and national origin.
“In Virginia — and America — we do not uplift one group by tearing another down. We do not define individuals by the color of their skin,” said Mr. Miyares. “My Office of Civil Rights found reasonable cause to believe the Fairfax County School Board’s overhaul of TJ’s merit-based admissions system was deliberately designed to reduce Asian American admissions.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that her department would “further investigate this complaint to ensure that all students [are] being assessed fairly, according to merit and accomplishment.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the admissions standards “a policy purposefully engineered to discrimination,” but Fairfax County Public Schools countered that the matter has already been settled in court.
“This matter has already been fully litigated,” said the district’s Thursday statement. “A federal appellate court determined there was no merit to arguments that the admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminates against any group of students.”
The schools district’s leadership and counsel “are currently reviewing the documents released today by the Attorney General and will issue a more detailed response in the coming days. FCPS remains committed to providing a world class education for all of our students,” the statement said.
The Coalition for TJ, a group of parents, sued the district in 2021 over the updated admissions policy, arguing that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined in February 2024 to take the case after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the district.
The appeals court found there was no discriminatory intent, in part because Asian-American students were still overrepresented at the school in terms of their percentage of the overall county population.
The court also determined that the admissions standards, including basing acceptance in part on geography and class rank, were race-neutral.
In 2020, Thomas Jefferson was ranked #1 nationally by the US News and World Report list of best high schools, but fell to #14 in 2024.
The Department of Education under President Trump has launched Title VI investigations into more than 50 educational institutions, including the Chicago Public Schools, the Evanston-Skokie School District 65 in Illinois, Harvard University, and the Harvard Law Review.
