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Thomas “T.J.” Jefferson and Race-Based School Admissions
White parents and Asian parents are fighting over how many black students should be allowed into Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, Virginia. The school, universally known as “T.J.,” is among the finest STEM high schools in the United States. Given its role as a feeder school into the upper echelons of tech in America, this is more than another culture war battle. It is not an exaggeration to say it affects national security, which is why the issue is likely to be sorted out by the Supreme Court.
From its beginnings until summer of 2020, the only way into prestigious T.J. for residents was to pass the 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 that included “experience factors, including students who are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, special education students, or students who are currently attending underrepresented middle schools.”
The results were as intended: without the entrance test, black students grew to seven percent from one percent of the class, while the number of Asian American students fell to 54 percent from 73 percent, the lowest share in years. The number of white students also fell, but no one seemed to care that they accounted for only 22 percent of admissions, despite being 65 percent of the county population. 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 (or whether such a thing was even necessary) they saw racism. The experience factors were just a work-around for straight up race-based decisions.
After some action in lower courts, in May 2023 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, in a two to one ruling, found that there was not sufficient evidence the changes were adopted with discriminatory intent. Writing for the majority, Judge Robert King, a Clinton appointee, said that the school had a legitimate interest in “expanding the array of student backgrounds.” Too bad for the Asians, the on-and-off again minority; there’s only so many seats available at T.J. The court finding was that T.J.’s essay-based admission policy was race neutral and was not a proxy for race-based decisions. T.J. was able to make racially-motivated decisions without appearing legally to make racially-motivated decisions.
This was of course all before the June 2023 Supreme Court rulings in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, which asked three questions: can race be a factor for admission, has Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing Asian American applicants by engaging in racial balancing, overemphasizing race and rejecting workable race-neutral alternatives, and whether a university can reject a race-neutral alternative because it would change the composition of the student body, without proving that the alternative would cause a dramatic sacrifice in academic quality or the educational benefits of overall student-body diversity. In short, can race continue to be an admission factor? The emphasis was on displacing Asian American students with black ones, which is why the Supreme Court cases saw amici filings by the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the Asian American Coalition For Education, and the Asian American Legal Foundation. Also included was the Coalition for T.J.
The Pacific Legal Foundation now wants the Supreme Court to overturn the Appeals Court decision, arguing that T.J.’s new admissions policies disadvantage Asian American applicants. “They are, in our view, using proxies for race in order to get a racial result,” said Joshua Thompson, a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation. In its filing Monday asking the Supreme Court to review the case, the Foundation argued that T.J.’s admissions plan was “intentionally designed to achieve the same results as overt racial discrimination.” Specifically referring to the Supreme Court’s June affirmative action decision, the filing said that its “guarantees might mean little if schools could accomplish the same discriminatory result through race-neutral proxies.” Is T.J. flouting the most recent Supreme Court decision?
It should be a helluva fight if the Supreme Court takes the T.J. case. In a forthcoming paper in the Stanford Law Review quoted in the New York Times, Sonja Starr, a professor of law and criminology at the University of Chicago, writes the plaintiffs are “laying the groundwork for a much bigger legal transformation” that could ban any public policy effort to close racial gaps, ultimately reverberating in “areas beyond education, such as fair housing, environmental permitting, and social welfare policies.”
In tension are the most basic of rights, that institutions should not discriminate based on race versus a more modern belief that institutions have a fundamental role to play in achieving racial balance in schools and the workplace. The Court’s decision in Harvard, et al, did not address the proxy concept, that by focusing on say essays schools could achieve racist ends by proxy means. In dissent at the Appeals Court, Judge Allison Rushing wrote the majority refused “to look past the policy’s neutral varnish” and consider instead “an undisputed racial motivation and an undeniable racial result.” Judge Rushing, appointed by Donald Trump, added that the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection “would be hollow if governments could intentionally achieve discriminatory ends under cover of neutral means.” She means, like T.J. is doing.
The T.J. case matters; if the Supreme Court rules for the Asian American parents’ group, that means race-neutral admissions will be the next in line to fall after the Court’s June affirmative action ruling.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
4469: More Americans Killed in Iraq, by Iran
OMG, didya see “So You Think You Can Dance?” the other night? I know, too cool. Then after that one sports team I favor beat the sports team you prefer. Let’s talk about that! Also, I went to WalMart and got the cutest Hello Kitty underwear, and a slurpee. Then I got a new “Support the Troops” bumper sticker for July 4. LOL.Also, a rocket attack on a US base near Iraq’s border with Iran killed three American soldiers Wednesday. The deaths came at the end of the bloodiest month for US troops in Iraq in two years.
More Americans died in Iraq this month alone than from January to March, which means that the death toll is governed by what THEY choose to do, not what WE do.
Even worse, it is all becoming more clearly about Iran. Wednesday’s rocket attack struck a US base in southern Iraq that is located a few miles from Iran. The Iranian link was evident from the type of rockets used. American intelligence officials believe the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah is one of the only militias to use IRAMS, or improvised rocket-assisted mortars, against US troops. They are made in Iran.
Kataib Hezbollah has links to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group and is solely focused on attacking US personnel. Kataib Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a June 6 rocket attack on a US base in Baghdad that killed five soldiers.
And not related in any way at all, even a tiny bit, Iraq today signed a $365 million agreement to install a pipeline network to import natural gas from Iran for power stations in the country. The pipelines will eventually supply 25 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas a day to the Sadr, al-Quds and South Baghdad power stations in the Iraqi capital. The pipelines will bypass the Mansouriya gas field, which is due to supply gas to the two power plants instead of Iran starting 2016.
Read more about the US-Iran proxy war now underway in Iraq…
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Goddamn War
The US military announced another American soldier has been killed, today, in southern Iraq.The death brings to 4,460 the number of American service members who have died in Iraq since the war began in 2003.
Five other American soldiers died earlier this week in a rocket attack on what used to be FOB Loyalty in Baghdad.
The New Hampshire governor’s office says one of the five American soldiers was Pfc. Michael Cook. Monday, the day of the attack, was Cook’s 27th birthday. He is survived by a wife and two young children in Kansas.
al Qaeda claims “credit” for the attack, but that is bullshit. FOB Loyalty sits right near Sadr City, a Shiite enclave and not anywhere al Qaeda would be welcome. The attacks are more likely to have been carried out by Iranian-sponsored militia. Fellow-blogger Musings on Iraq has video up on additional Hezbollah brigades’ attacks on US Forces.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
The South (of Iraq) will Rise Again
The Future of Iraq: Troops Face Dangers in South outlines the increasing dangers US troops, as well as the rest of Iraq, face in the volatile south. The southern regions of Iraq are and always have been Shiite strongholds, a fertile crescent of Iranian influence and happy places for al Sadr’s people. Unfortunately, that’s also where much of the easy-to-get oil is.Another sign that the south is going to be trouble for some time was today’s rocket attack against an Iraqi oil storage depot that set one tank ablaze in a rare assault on strategic southern oilfields. Dhiya Jaffar, head of the state-run South Oil Company, told Reuters the attack set ablaze one tank at the Zubair 1 storage facility. An Iraqi police source said bombs targeted four tanks at the facility, but only one of the tanks hit contained crude and ignited. Another bomb hit an empty tank and bombs at two other tanks were deactivated, the police source said.
While the attack disrupted relatively little of the oil flow, it was not for lack of trying. Expect more as the US-Iran proxy war and Iraq’s problems with raising its oil output continue to collide in the South.
Still want more evidence of the Southern mess? Have a look at the growing tensions in Maysan, where the new Governor refused to meet with US PRT personnel, and told local agencies and non-government organizations not to cooperate with them either. The Americans responded in turn, by cutting their training of local forces there. Can’t see all that leading anywhere good.
Note that the continued presence of US troops in the area simply adds fuel to the fire; there are enough soldiers to keep tensions high, but without the mandate or the force (after eight years!) to tamp down the sparks (end of fire metaphor).
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Future of Iraq: Troops Face Dangers in South
Care for a preview of 2012 in Iraq?Magic 8 Ball predicts… Iraq agrees to allow US forces to remain in-country under some sort of flimsy cover, I don’t know, protecting something something freedom, with a semi-secret side agreement that the US will be free to hunt terrorists while staying out of “internal politics,” meaning we won’t intervene when Shias gun down Sunnis to keep the Sadrists semi-happy. US troops in central Iraq will be reasonably safe, as long as they avoid the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time syndrome. That said, the working out of the details of this arrangement will hurt; two Americans were killed just yesterday in Baghdad, victims of a car bomb attack on their convoy.
Northern Iraq? OK, Joe! The Kurds will mostly ignore the soldiers as long as they plop themselves down between the Kurds and the Arabs and keep the two from a cat fight over oil revenues. Not much different than what we’re doing up there today. Likely going to be the easy duty in Iraq. Again, the ground settling will be a bumpy process– last week’s bombings killed dozens right in Kirkuk.
Which leaves… the south. A Shia area neatly cleansed of Sunnis, Iranian influence remains as important as Baghdad’s. Have a look at a recent Army Times article for a preview of what dangerous duty in Iraq will look like.
The buffet selection down south include mortars, IEDs, EFPs and more. The groups serving up such delicacies include Kataib Hezbollah, which has links to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group; League of the Righteous, also known by its Arabic name, Asaib Ahl al-Haq; and the Promised Day Brigade, affiliated with anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. All are believed to get financing and support from Iran.
Army Times quotes Michael Knights, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying “Though effective attacks are still rare, the deaths of five US troops in one month is a warning that more determined Iranian-backed attacks could continue if the United States pushes its present initiative to keep a residual force in Iraq.”
The US-Iran proxy war will continue. Soldiers in Iraq in 2012 and beyond will continue to take casualties long into the future down south. It will be a very poor legacy of eight years of war without a point.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
US v. Iran Proxy War: Another Round
As our collective national boner over the death of bin Laden works itself out, we now return you to our regularly scheduled war, already in progress.While you were pounding brews celebrating the splattering of bin Laden’s brains (Dude! USA! USA! Last thing through Osama’s mind: a bullet!), the US-Iran proxy war in Iraq continued for a record-breaking April.
Always prescient Musings on Iraq reports that of US deaths in Iraq last month, half were due to enemy action and occurred in southern Iraq and Baghdad, and were likely the work of Iranian backed Special Groups. Tehran times militant attacks to coincide with important political events taking place in Iraq. Currently, that is the discussion over whether Baghdad should allow U.S. soldiers to remain in the country past the December 2011 withdrawal date, which the Iranian regime opposes.
On April 30, a US Army spokesman blamed the League of the Righteous for recent missile attacks, and said that they, and the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, were supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Qods Force.
Musings also has YouTube videos that purportedly show the attacks. This, plus Justin Bieber and funny penguins, is why God created the Internet.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
US v Iran, Revisted
Another round in the Proxy War, as valiant US underdog and lickspittal Bahrain claims that Iranian-friended Hezbollah is actively plotting to overthrow the country’s ruling family. CNN reports that “Evidence confirms that Bahraini elements are being trained in Hezbollah camps specifically established to train assets from the Gulf.”Bahrain will no doubt respond by democratically killing more demonstrators, for their freedom, which is definitely not about oil or US naval bases, no sir.
See below for more on the US-Iran Proxy War
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
US v. Iran, Round 874
An Iraqi election poster decrying both US and Iranian influence in Iraqi domestic affairs.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
More on the US-Iran Proxy War
Following my article on the ongoing US-Iran proxy war in the MidEast, here are two more indications of the struggle:The AP reported Bahrain said Monday that 1500 Saudi Arabian troops will remain “indefinitely as a counter to perceived threats from Iran.” Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa “told reporters that Iran is a real threat and the Gulf force is needed to counter Tehran’s ‘sustained campaign’ in Bahrain.”
The Wall Street Journal stated that moves by the new Egyptian government to re-establish relations with Tehran are worrying the US and Egypt’s neighbors in the region. US officials have expressed concerns that Egypt’s decision to mend ties with Iran is part of a broader foreign policy plan that could shift the balance of power in the region.
Meanwhile, boneheads like this worry that the loss of our pet dictators in the Middle East will undermine the US’ war on/of terror. Without friendly thugs, how will we outsource our torturing?
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Proxy War: US v. Iran in the Middle East
It’s all about oil.It’s all about Iran.By the time my tour in Iraq was wrapping up, the mine resistant vehicles we traveled in could take a solid hit from pretty much anything out there and get us home alive, except for one thing: (allegedly, cough, cough) Iranian-made IEDs. These shaped lens explosively formed penetrating devices fired a liquefied white hot slug of molten copper that was about the only weapon that really scared us. The Iranians were players in all parts of Iraqi society post-2003, including the daily violence. You found Iranian products in the markets, and the tourism business around significant Shia shrines was run by and for Iranians. They were at minimum fighting a proxy war in Iraq, and that war was very, very real for me.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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