Supreme Court Takes Up Asian American Parents’ Challenge to Maryland Magnet School Lottery

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (TodayViralUSA) — The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge from a group of Asian American parents who say a Maryland school district’s lottery for selective middle school programs was designed to discriminate against their children, setting up another major test of how the Constitution applies to race in education.

In a brief order on Monday, the justices granted review in Association for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education, limiting the case to a single question: whether a plaintiff challenging a facially neutral admissions policy as racially discriminatory must show that the targeted racial group suffered an overall disparate impact relative to its share of the applicant pool.

The ‘Pandemic Plan’

The Association for Education Fairness, an organization of Asian American parents in Montgomery County, first sued in 2020 over changes to admissions at four highly selective magnet middle schools that were intended in part to increase enrollment of Black and Hispanic students, SCOTUSblog reported.

Beginning in the 2021-22 school year, the district placed all fifth graders who met criteria including grades, reading level and test scores into a pool and selected students by lottery. The parents amended their lawsuit to argue that the new approach, nicknamed the “Pandemic Plan” because of when it was adopted, intentionally discriminates against Asian American applicants.

Lower courts sided with the district

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis dismissed the case, writing that she could not see how the plan imposed a disproportionate burden on Asian American students “when the percentage of admitted Asian American students so substantially outpaces the percentage representation among all applicants.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld that ruling in February.

The parents, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, told the justices that federal appeals courts are divided on whether an intentional-discrimination claim can proceed without showing that a policy disproportionately affects a racial group. Citing the court’s 2023 decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, they argued that “if ‘eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,’ this cannot stand.”

The school board urged the court to stay out of the dispute, calling it “unremarkable and of little significance” and noting that the share of Asian American students selected actually increased at two other magnet schools in the same year under the same policy.

Several groups filed briefs urging the court to take the case, including Students for Fair Admissions, the organization behind the 2023 affirmative action ruling, according to the court’s docket.