Supreme Court to Weigh Case Over Race and School Admissions

The US Supreme Court agreed to consider making it easier to challenge public school admissions policies as racially discriminatory in a fresh test of educational diversity efforts. The justices said Monday they will consider reviving a lawsuit that claims Maryland’s largest school district, Montgomery County, is discriminating against Asian-Americans applicants to its four magnet middle schools. Two lower courts tossed out the suit. Racial-preference opponents are seeking to extend the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision barring universities from using race in admissions for the sake of diversity. That ruling, involving Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, left open questions about policies that affect a school’s racial composition without the explicit consideration of race. The disputed Montgomery County policy puts selected students into an admissions lottery for the magnet schools. The parents fault the school district for using “local norming” to determine which students reach the academic threshold to qualify for the lottery, saying Asian-American students get penalized because they disproportionately attend high-performing, low-poverty elementary schools. The group contends that the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals applied the wrong legal standard, improperly requiring the parents to show that the system suppresses enrollment of Asian Americans below their share of the applicant pool. The group’s lawyers at Pacific Legal Foundation say they have evidence that officials intentionally discriminated against Asian Americans. “The Constitution protects students as individuals, not as members of a racial group,” Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer Chris Kieser said in a statement. “A school district should not be able to defeat a discrimination claim by showing that its policy did not harm enough Asian-American children.” The parents group, the Association for Education Fairness, sued in 2020 to challenge an earlier policy, which the organization said caused Asian-American admissions to plunge by putting less emphasis on grades and test scores. Montgomery County then adopted the lottery policy for the 2021-22 school year, saying the pandemic made the previous system impossible. The change shifted the focus of the lawsuit to the new policy. The school district urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case, saying the 4th Circuit correctly concluded that the policy doesn’t violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Montgomery County says Asian-American students are admitted to the magnet schools at a higher rate than any other racial group. The district also says the parents’ group didn’t point to any statements or conduct suggesting officials intentionally discriminated against Asian Americans. “It is difficult to even conceptualize how a lottery-based admissions policy — adopted in response to an unforeseeable global pandemic — could intentionally discriminate on the basis of race,” the school district said in court papers. The Supreme Court in 2024 turned away similar challenges to admissions policies at elite public high schools in Boston and Fairfax County, Virginia. In each case, conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have granted review. Under its normal scheduling practices, the court will hear arguments next year and rule by the end of June. The case is Association for Educational Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education, 26-12. Photo: Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg Copyright 2026 Bloomberg. Topics K-12