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The Wages of DEI at Thomas Jefferson High School
The results are in for one school — after four years of DEI-driven, basically race-based admissions, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as T.J., in Alexandria, Virginia has seen its national ranking fall to 14th place and its number of National Merit Scholar semi-finalists cut nearly in half. And according to the Virginia Attorney General, as of May 2025 it is in violation of the Virginia Human Rights Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for discriminating against Asian American students in the admissions process at the school and under Federal investigation. It is steadfastly sticking to its radical admissions policy despite the negative effects. Given T.J.’s role as a STEM feeder school into the Ivies and Big Tech, this is more than another culture war battle. It affects national security.
Until four years ago the only way into T.J. was via a rigorous entrance exam. Then in 2020, following the death of George Floyd, T.J. officials became concerned about their negligible number of black and Hispanic students and changed admissions standards. The test was gone, replaced by a “holistic review” including “students who are economically disadvantaged [who now make up over 11 percent of the student body] English language learners, special education students, or students who are currently attending underrepresented middle schools.”
Without the entrance test, the black student population grew to seven percent from one percent of the class, while the number of Asian American students fell from 73 to 54 percent, the lowest share in years. A group of mostly Asian American parents objected to the new plan and started the Coalition for T.J. The coalition filed a lawsuit with the help of the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation. Instead of seeing weighting of experience factors as a way to level the playing field for underrepresented groups, they saw racism. The experience factors were just a work-around for straight up race-based decisions.
In 2022, a federal judge found the school board engaged in impermissible “racial balancing” when it overhauled admissions. In May 2023, however, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of the new admissions process, finding T.J. had not discriminated against Asian American students in its admissions policies. The appellate court found that there was not sufficient evidence the changes were adopted with discriminatory intent. The court said that the school had a legitimate interest in “expanding the array of student backgrounds.” Too bad for the Asians, America’s on-and-off again minority; there’s only so many seats available at T.J. The court found T.J.’s essay-based admission policy was not a proxy for race-based decisions. T.J. was thus able to make racially-motivated decisions without appearing legally to make racially-motivated decisions. Because of this twist of logic, Supreme Court decisions in key affirmative action cases, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, did not apply.
The Supreme Court then declined certiorari—it would not hear the case—in Coalition for T.J. v. Fairfax County School Board. The conservative Court’s denial left in place the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals affirming the discriminatory policy. The declination is in contrast to the Court’s earlier rejection of affirmative action, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard, and of race as a primary admissions factor. T.J. was free to not really/but really discriminate in its admissions process.
One factor T.J. would rely on was an applicant’s public middle school zip code, a good indicator of race in a divided Fairfax county. Zip code was to become one proxy for race, a work-around to Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard which supposedly outlawed race alone as a primary admissions factor. Schools like T.J. may use race as an admissions criterion so long as it is not the only basis for a decision, with the implied so long as the goal is diversity (supposedly good on its face) and not whitewashing (naughty.) It is this policy the Supreme Court refused to review. “The holding,” Justice Alito added in his dissent, “effectively licenses official actors to discriminate against any racial group [Asians, in the instance of T.J.] with impunity as long as that group continues to perform at a higher rate than other groups.”
That is all history because enough time has passed that we now know the results of this legal tomfoolery. Once the top-ranked public high school in the nation, T.J. fell to 14th place in the 2024 U.S. News rankings. According to the U.S. News Best High School Rankings Methodology, academic performance constitutes at least 50 percent of a school’s overall ranking. This includes standardized test scores and participation and success rates in advanced courses like IB and AP, contributing to two categories that hold significant weight in determining a school’s ranking: college readiness and state assessment proficiency.
Also, the school, which once boasted 157 National Merit Scholar semifinalists in 2020, saw that number nearly halved for the 2025 scholarship competition (the school says the data may also reflect problems during Covid.)
“The decline is the inevitable consequence of elevating ‘equity’ over excellence,” wrote Mark Spooner, on his blog Fairfax Schools Monitor. “In 2020, then-Superintendent Scott Braband announced the School Board’s determination that DEI would no longer be ‘a thing’; it would henceforth be ‘the thing’ in the Fairfax County public school system. T.J. was the obvious first target for this ‘social justice’ initiative because more than 70 percent of its students, admitted under rigorous academic criteria, were Asian Americans. The racial imbalance was deemed unacceptable.”
Spooner went on to write “We are more than three years into the T.J. experiment, but the Fairfax County School Board hasn’t yet addressed its successes and failures. Whether an objective analysis will ever be conducted is questionable, for the program was adopted primarily for ideological reasons, and the Board may be reluctant to subject its ideological assumptions to scrutiny. The elimination of entrance exams and other academic criteria forced T.J. to introduce remedial math courses for academically unprepared students. How many students needed to be enrolled in these programs? And did the programs succeed in rapidly bringing students up to speed so they would thereafter thrive at T.J.? We don’t know, but there are disturbing clues. Information has emerged that the drop-out rate at T.J. has spiked, particularly among some minority groups. If this is true, it suggests that the softened admissions standards may have hurt the very students who were intended as beneficiaries.”
Though it appeared to have been settled by the Supreme Court’s non-intervention, the Virginia Attorney General’s recent move may reopen the issue. According to the Attorney General, Asian American students received 56 fewer offers of admission immediately following the shift in policies, after consistently making up more than 60 percent of admitted students. He said the school was already a “minority majority high school,” but the board “determined it was the wrong minorities. The board abandoned a race-neutral, merit-based system that previously was in place, and they adopted a policy structure specifically designed to reduce the number of Asian American students.” The Attorney General referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice for further enforcement under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as a next step. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold money from schools and colleges over DEI efforts that amount to discrimination, and has opened an investigation into T.J.’s admissions policy.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Rich Bauer said...
1Education in dunbass Amerika is totally overrated. We elected a total moron for prezidunce TWICE. MOST of his cabinet are functional illiterates. So dont feel too bad.
06/10/25 7:10 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2“It affects national security.”
Hegseth, Tulsi?
06/11/25 7:18 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3Given the Orange Clown’s desire to ban Chinese students from US colleges, dont be surprised if his landslide mandate gives him the power to ban all Asians.
06/11/25 8:06 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
4I think Thomas Sowell today would say- “What did they expect?” But on to bigger fish. Since I suspect this nation should have been perhaps five separate nations (New Africa, New Spain, etc) we might get there yet. California might secede and then hook up with Mexico and then California’s governor could then become POUM (President of United Mexico. He’ll have to convince Arizona, Texas, New Mexico to go along but Mexico sure would be thrilled. Putin would be very jealous that Mexico regained it’s former territory before he was able to restore Russia’s former borders.
06/11/25 10:16 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
5Forget about state identification. The history of this dumbass country and Russia has always been the rich exploiting the poor.
06/11/25 4:42 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
6Tulsi Blowhard is a DEI threat to national security
Tulsi: As we stand here, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” she said toward the end of the video. “And perhaps it’s because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won’t have access to.”
Bet she is talking about Asian rich people.
06/11/25 9:24 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
7Trump Bizarro World June 12, 2025
Hangover Hegseth told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he will not commit to providing military support for Ukraine, but he will support military action against US citizens protesting in every state.
06/12/25 8:26 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
8Donnie Dementia DEI – degenerative emotional intellect
Besides Don’s quit-it tilting at windmills lunatic speeches, his recent phonecall with California Governor Newsom is more evidence the lights are out in his demented brain. Newsom has called DD a “stone cold liar”, condemned the federal deployment of troops in Los Angeles as “theater” and “madness” and even questioned the president’s mental fitness, as protests over immigration raids in the city continue.
Newsom said DD never raised with him the federalizing of the national guard before it occurred, when the two spoke by phone last Friday, despite the president’s claims to the contrary. “He lied, stone cold liar,” the governor told the New York Times podcast the Daily on Thursday morning in an interview.
Of the subsequent rare commanding of the national guard troops by the president, rather than the governor, Newsom told the Daily: “It came completely out of left field.”
Newsom told local media that Trump’s age seemed to be affecting him.
He claimed to the Times that the president can’t recall the phone conversation they had on Friday and that “he’s not all there”, echoing comments first made by the governor on Monday that Trump, who turns 79 on Saturday, is “incapable of even a train of thought” and that he has “lost it”.
Here’s a thought: tell DD the military parade was already held, that everybody said it was beautiful. Then save the wasteful tax spending of $50,000,000.
06/12/25 1:50 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
9TACO Don Eats IT
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but…”
Nevermind.
06/13/25 7:50 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
10In an embarrassing turn of events for The AmeriCON-serveittoyou and its idiot readers, its”peace Prezidunce” went all gung-Ho on war today:
In the wake of a series of strikes by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites, potentially pushing the Middle East to the brink of an all-out conflict, President Donald Trump told ABC News he thought the attacks had been “excellent” and suggested there was “more to come.”
On Thursday, Israel hit dozens of sites inside Iran, saying the country had enriched enough fissile material for several nuclear bombs. Israel also targeted Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said could carry a nuclear payload.
“I think it’s been excellent,” Trump told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl. “We gave them a chance and they didn’t take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you’re going to get hit. And there’s more to come. a lot more.”
Yeah. More to come.
06/13/25 1:07 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
11MAGA SHEEP SHOCKED DER LEADER IS A NEOCON JOB
You have to feel sorry for Tucker, Bannon, Peter, and the rest of gullible MAGA SHEEP who believed DONNIE DEMENTIA was a force to kill the neocons and Deep State who want US in forever wars for the military industrial sureveillance gravy train.
Dont expect these sheep to take to the streets today. They will bleeet, bitch. Sheep do what they are told.
06/14/25 7:51 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
12Donnie Dementia by phone this morning wanted to make one thing clear: ‘America First’ means whatever he says it does. ‘Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,’ Trump told me.” (Of course the demented fool never read a history book)
The little dick further said, “For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace,” according to Scherer’s reporting.
Hurts to hear your dear leader thinks you are fools.
06/14/25 9:25 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
13Donnie Dementia ANGRY AT DEI-TY for reigning on his parade
MAGA claims it’s god’s will that we have to live with DD, while Melania doesnt have to or change his diapers and piss pack. So why god, would you ruin the little dick’s parade?
USA TODAY: Through it all, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sat next to the president, looking like a guy about to be held accountable for not making the parade “strong” and “huge” enough.
But it wasn’t all Hegseth’s fault. This was the fault of all the Americans who chose to take our president’s special day and make it about America. You meanies decided that standing up against government-sponsored cruelty against immigrants and vast federal overreach was more important than letting the guy behind the government-sponsored cruelty and the overreaching have a glorious parade that would make everyone think he’s awesome.
For shame, Americans. President Trump has been working tirelessly to enrich himself and not do any of the things he said he would do, other than the be-cruel-to-immigrants thing, and this is how you repay him? By making his parade seem puny and sad while making your own grievances seem widespread and legitimate?
Look what you all did! You made the poor man completely lose his mind and start babbling like a maniac who capitalizes words For No reason!
I hope you’re happy with yourselves.
I certainly am.
06/16/25 1:09 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
14Donnie’s DEI hire says IRAN NO NUKE THREAT…
OOPS. When reporters pointed Trump to testimony from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in March that the U.S. intelligence community did not believe Iran was in the process of building a nuclear weapon, the president appeared dismissive.
“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having them,” he added.
Trump told reporters he was pursuing a “a real end, not a ceasefire” as the two countries continue to attack each other.
Earlier, Trump poured cold water on French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement that the U.S. president left the summit early to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
“He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire,” Trump wrote. “Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”
So Tulsi isnt the only one.
06/17/25 11:11 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
15AmCON JOB drops a bomb on Zionists
“Israel is a rogue nuclear state that is aggressive abroad and despotic at home. Like so many other bad things in the world, it is not the responsibility of Washington to fix this faraway problem. But it is a moral duty that our government cease enabling its criminal and destabilizing behavior.”
KaBOOOM.
06/17/25 11:39 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
16About that MAGA PEACE PREZIDUNCE..
“President Donald Trump is growing increasingly warm to using US military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities and souring on the idea of a diplomatic solution to end the escalating conflict, two officials familiar with the ongoing discussions tell CNN.”
Wow, what a surprise DD has gone Deep State.
06/17/25 2:16 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
17THE GREAT PEACE PREZIDUNCE FINAL SOLUTION
Donnie Dumbshit is deciding if HE shall join the Israelis and complete the job or find a diplomatic way out of this. RIGHT.
Failure means that there is also a danger that “you end up with a damaged and wounded Iran which has the nuclear programme still intact. SO IT IS Israel’s aim is to “bring the Americans into the conflict” so that US power can be used to destroy the nuclear facilities.
But the United States and Israel have given Iran little reason to believe that giving up its enrichment program will solve its problems. There’s a significant risk that Iran believes that the U.S. efforts to negotiate a deal were simply a ruse—a delaying tactic for Israel to prepare its military attack.
The widespread nature of Israel’s assault, which included attacks against senior Iranian officials and energy infrastructure, may also convince Iran that Israel is targeting the regime itself, not pushing Iran toward a nuclear deal. Indeed, in his address aimed directly at the Iranian people, Netanyahu described the Israeli operation as “clearing the path” for the overthrow of the regime.
If Iran believes that there are no restraints on Israel’s violence, then it has little incentive to make a deal, but INCENTIVE TO INFLICT ITS NUKES ON ITS ATTACKERS.
06/17/25 8:11 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
18Before Tulsi joined the Trump Deep State…
Trump says he doesn’t want war with Iran, but that’s exactly what he wants, because that’s exactly what Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu, al-Qaeda, Bolton, Haley, and other NeoCons/NeoLibs want. That’s what he put first–not America. pic.twitter.com/kAPyxlKXDs
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) May 14, 2019
06/18/25 6:58 PM | Comment Link