In light of the recent awards scandal afflicting northern Virginia’s high schools, we have to wonder if Fairfax County’s school board and Superintendent Michelle Reid are concerned at all with fulfilling their basic responsibilities to educate our children. Plummeting test scores and so-called equitable grading have forced parents to wake up to the fact that equity fervor eclipsed merit long ago. Even in once revered schools such as the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), achievement has given way to leftist ideology.
At a town hall meeting hosted by a Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) “Equity Officer” and the Irving Middle School Principal Cynthia Conley earlier this month, I posed the question: Is FCPS going to admit children to TJ based on merit alone next year, or will their ethnic backgrounds and skin colors be considered as factors in their applications as well?
FCPS Region 4 Equity Officer Michell Cottrell Williams, one of many of the county’s administrators on the equity indoctrination gravy train, was visibly taken aback by my direct question, but didn’t refute its premise. She awkwardly answered, “I, uh, I don’t [uncomfortable laughter], uh, know what any future plans are for changing any of the current TJ admission policies. I know TJ, uh, um, uh, is a big issue right now … uh, that, that many people in the county are aware of.”
Unlike the region’s equity officer, I’m actually aware of how the policy works and how it negatively affects high-achieving students, especially Asian applicants. My family is in the middle of the TJ application process. I was naively optimistic that the pushback Virginia’s education officials have received because of their corrupt withholding of Commended Student awards might force TJ admissions back toward merit, at least a little. But it has not.
In Fall 2022, FCPS notified eighth-grade students of the continued low-bar academic prerequisites for the nation’s top-rated high school. Students need at least a 3.5 GPA, must have completed Algebra 1, and be enrolled in honors English and Science courses. Many applicants have much higher GPAs and will already have completed honors Geometry by the time they enter high school, but that is not relevant to their TJ application under the equity system.
Instead, after students meet the basic requirements, they are assigned a date and location to take their equity essay test. Last year, only one of the five questions was STEM-focused. The others were about overcoming adversity, advocating oneself, achieving goals, and methods for solving problems. Arguably, the best route into TJ under this subjective assessment system after making the cutoff is to seem politically liberal and emphasize victimhood.
Lowering the bar for admittance to our nation’s top-rated school seems bad enough, but the motive is even worse. Multiple conversations in school board meetings and work sessions demonstrate that the FCPS board initially changed the admissions process to engineer the racial composition and decrease the number of Asian-American students at TJ. Their plan worked. In its first year of implementation, Asian student admittance fell by almost 20% from 2020 to 2021. In February 2022, Federal Judge Claude Hilton ruled that TJ admissions policies racially discriminated against Asians.
In September 2022, FCPS appealed Hilton’s decision at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, with counsel from Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP , the same law firm that fought to maintain school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. Hunton seems to have a history of fighting on the wrong side of important matters.
While the Fourth Circuit decides the case, it placed a stay on Judge Hilton’s order, meaning that FCPS is free to use its “ patently unconstitutional ” TJ admissions policy until the verdict is in.
At the FCPS Budget Hearing on Jan. 23, 2023, I asked school board members, “Have you already determined your racial quotas for the incoming class?” No answer, of course.
As a mother to an applicant of Asian descent, I am livid that my son might be rejected from TJ for racist reasons. If not for being the wrong race, they might even reject him for being the son of a woman with the “wrong” political inclinations. He deserves a fair shot, just like every other student and family, regardless of race, background, or income status. That is true equality.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a mother in Fairfax County, an author, and a member of Independent Women’s Network.
