The US Supreme Court has agreed to take up a lawsuit over the role of race in admissions at specialized high schools in Maryland, after a group of parents alleged that the admissions policy discriminates against Asian American students in order to benefit Black and Latino students.
In an order issued Monday, the high court said it would consider the parents' group's petition concerning four highly competitive magnet schools in Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, D.C., in neighboring Maryland.
The Supreme Court said it will assess whether the parents have enough evidence of discrimination for the lawsuit to proceed.
Lower courts had previously dismissed the suit on the grounds that the share of Asian American students at the magnet schools is not lower than their share of the applicant pool.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the parents' group, the Association for Education Fairness, the case could be revived. The court is expected to hear arguments in the coming months and rule before June.
A pandemic-era plan
The Montgomery County school district's admissions process has been in place since the 2021-2022 school year, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district screens all students for academic potential, then holds a random lottery to select students from the eligible pool for the magnet schools or for an enhanced curriculum at their neighborhood schools.
The lawsuit argues that the screening process makes things harder for Asian American students, whom the plaintiffs say are concentrated in high-performing elementary schools with low poverty rates. Part of the process ranks students by comparing their test scores with those of students from similar family-income backgrounds.
In their petition to the Supreme Court, the parents wrote that under a peer-group-based standard, authorities could set specific racial targets and meet them without being investigated for discriminatory intent, as long as race is not explicitly stated in the process.
Lawsuit previously dismissed
In 2022, US District Judge Paula Xinis dismissed the case. She noted that the share of Asian American students admitted was higher than their share of all applicants to the magnet schools. Judge Xinis also found no evidence that the lottery policy was carried out with discriminatory intent.
The district has consistently argued that the new admissions policy, dubbed the "pandemic plan" because of when it was issued, is race-neutral. In its filing urging the Supreme Court not to take the case, the district's lawyer wrote: "The pandemic plan is a form of colorblind lottery. Nothing in its content, history or purpose violates the Constitution."
The Supreme Court justices will now consider whether a group claiming to be affected by a race-neutral policy must show that it was disproportionately harmed in order to prove intentional discrimination.
