US Supreme Court to hear case on race in school admissions

A group of parents claims local admission policy boosts Black and Latino students while constraining Asian applicants.

Al JazeeraAl Jazeera Staff2026-10-20 04:38查看原文 ↗

A group of parents claims local admission policy boosts Black and Latino students while constraining Asian applicants.

Roosevelt Middle School in River Forest, Ill [File: Nam Y. Huh/AP]

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about the role of race in admissions to selective Maryland middle schools after a group of parents claimed policies discriminated against Asian students in favour of Black and Latino students.

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the parents’ plea on four academically rigorous “magnet” schools in Montgomery County, a suburb on the outskirts of Washington, DC, in the neighbouring state of Maryland.

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The high court said it would weigh whether the parent group has enough evidence of discrimination for the case to move forward.

Lower courts previously dismissed the case because Asian-American students were not underrepresented at the specialised-curriculum schools compared with the pool of students that applied.

If the Supreme Court rules for the parent group, the Association for Education Fairness, it could revive the lawsuit.

The court is expected to hear arguments in the coming months and rule by June.

The Montgomery County school district’s selection process was introduced in the 2021-2022 school year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It screens all students for academic potential, and then implements a lottery to randomly assign students from that pool to receive enriched instruction at either a magnet school or a local school.

The suit alleged that the screening process makes it harder for Asian-American students, who the challengers said are clustered in “high-performing, low-poverty elementary schools”, to enter the lottery pool.

Part of the process ranks a student’s performance by comparing the student’s test scores against those of other students whose family incomes are at a similar level.

“Under the applicant pool benchmark, the government can set specific racial targets, hit them, and avoid even an inquiry into discriminatory intent,” so long as it has not explicitly called out race in its process, they wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court.

Previously thrown out

The case was thrown out in 2022 by US District Judge Paula Xinis. She noted that the percentage of admitted Asian-American students exceeded the percentage of Asian Americans among all applicants to the magnet schools.

Xinis also found no evidence that the lottery policy was implemented with discriminatory intent.

The school system has consistently argued the new admissions policy, called the “Pandemic Plan” due to the timing of its release, is race-neutral.

“The Pandemic Plan is a colorblind lottery,” lawyers wrote in a brief asking the Supreme Court not to take up the case. “Nothing about the Pandemic Plan, its history, or its purpose is offensive to the Constitution.”

Supreme Court justices will now consider whether a group claiming to be targeted by a race-neutral policy must show it was disproportionately harmed to prove intentional discrimination.

一群家长声称，当地的招生政策有利于黑人和拉丁裔学生，同时限制亚裔申请者。

伊利诺伊州里弗福雷斯特的罗斯福中学 [图片：Nam Y. Huh/AP]

美国最高法院已同意审理一起关于种族在马里兰州精英中学招生中的作用的案件。此前，一群家长声称，学校的政策歧视亚裔学生，而偏袒黑人和拉丁裔学生。

最高法院周一同意审理家长们提出的关于马里兰州蒙哥马利县四所学术要求严格的“磁校”的请求。蒙哥马利县是华盛顿特区郊区的一个小镇，位于邻近的马里兰州。

美国最高法院审理有关空军在关岛引爆未爆弹药的诉讼（共3条，第1条）

美国最高法院同意审理有关埃隆·马斯克狗狗币记录的监督案件（共3条记录，此为第2条）

特朗普政府就加州选民名册上存在非公民一事提起诉讼（共3条，此为第3条）

高等法院表示，将权衡原告方是否有足够的歧视证据，以推动案件继续审理。

下级法院此前驳回了此案，因为与申请入学的学生群体相比，亚裔美国学生在这些特殊课程学校中的比例并不低。

如果最高法院裁定家长团体“教育公平协会”胜诉，则该诉讼可能会重新启动。

预计法院将在未来几个月内听取辩论，并在6月前作出裁决。

蒙哥马利县学区的选拔程序是在 2021-2022 学年 COVID-19 疫情期间引入的。