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The inquiry is the latest attempt to apply the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban to K-12 education.
May 22, 2025, 5:20 p.m. ET
The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was investigating the admissions system at an elite public high school in Fairfax County, Va., which has been accused of discriminating against Asian American students to favor other racial groups.
The administration has repeatedly argued that the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in college admissions should also apply to K-12 education. But the court has never made such a statement, and it chose last year to allow the high school’s admissions program to stand.
The school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, is considered one of the best in the country. In 2020, the Fairfax County School Board overhauled the admissions process for Thomas Jefferson in an effort to diversify the majority-Asian student body. It did away with a high-stakes admissions exam and instituted a policy to reserve seats for top students from each area middle school. Applicants must also submit grades and essays.
Under the new admissions process, evaluators do not know the names or races of applicants. But they do consider whether candidates overcame challenges such as poverty or learning English as a second language.
The new admissions system led to a decrease in the percentage of Asian students at the school, and an increase in the percentage of Black, Hispanic and low-income students.
Asian Americans still make up the largest ethnic group at Thomas Jefferson, accounting for 60 percent of students, according to district data. Nineteen percent of all students in the district are Asian.
