Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

Summary

The Supreme Court denied certiorari in this equal protection challenge to the Fairfax County School Board's 2020 overhaul of admissions at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented from the denial, arguing that the Fourth Circuit's decision rests on a patently incorrect and dangerous understanding of intentional discrimination because it held that a facially neutral policy bears no disparate impact on Asian-American applicants so long as they remain overrepresented relative to the applicant pool, even though the policy sharply reduced their chances of admission. He would have granted certiorari and summarily rejected that holding without reaching whether the District Court correctly weighed all the evidence, warning that the reasoning effectively licenses intentional racial discrimination against high-performing groups and is already spreading to other circuits.