Supreme Court stays out of racial preferences fight over Virginia high school's admissions

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday avoided another contentious debate over race and education by turning away a challenge to an admissions policy aimed at encouraging diversity at a Virginia high school.

The high court’s decision not to intervene in the case comes just months after the conservative court ended the consideration of race in college admissions.

Two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented, saying the court should have struck down the policy

"We should wipe the decision off the books," Alito wrote of the lower court decision that allowed the admissions process to remain in place.

The latest case involved Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a highly selective public high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, that introduced a new admissions policy in 2022.

The school maintains that the policy, which does not consider standardized test scores and guarantees places for top students in various middle schools in the county, is race neutral.

The changes led to a decline in the number of Asian American students and an increase in Black and Latino students.

A group called Coalition for TJ, which opposes the policy, sued, citing evidence that the plan was implemented with an intent to “racially balance the freshman class by excluding Asian-Americans.”

The challengers say the policy violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which requires that the law apply equally to everyone.

They argued in court papers that the court should take up the case because other high schools have adopted similar plans that are intended to “accomplish a racial objective” while appearing on their face to be race neutral.

The school board’s lawyers argued that the new policy “removes