Supreme Court turns away challenge to admissions criteria at Boston high schools
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge by three prominent Boston high schools to race-neutral admissions standards aimed at increasing the racial and economic diversity of their student bodies.
Judge Neil Gorsuch famous The school has since changed its admissions policy, which “significantly reduced the need for our review.” Justice Samuel Alito joined Justice Clarence Thomas in dissenting from the decision not to hear the case.
The challenge follows a Supreme Court ruling in June 2023: Abolish affirmative action at higher education institutions and says race can no longer be a factor in admissions decisions.
Schools across the country are now weighing how to better diversify their student bodies without running afoul of the Supreme Court ruling, and are considering other factors such as zip code and socioeconomics to do so.
In Boston, admission to three so-called “test schools”—Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and John D. O’Brien School of Mathematics and Science—is based on students’ scores on standardized tests, grade point average, and preferences. But the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the admissions process as the test-based process became unmanageable.
Under admissions standards revised based on the impact of the pandemic, 20% of seats are awarded based on a student’s GPA, with the remaining seats going to students with the highest GPAs in each zip code in Boston.
The admissions process starts in November 2020 and ends in January 2021. Under the revised standards, 43 percent of incoming freshmen are economically disadvantaged, an increase from the previous year. According to statistics, of those admitted to exam schools, 31% are white, 23% are black, 23% are Hispanic, and 18% are Asian. court documents.
Under the old plan, 39% of invited students were white, 21% were Asian, 21% were Hispanic and 14% were black.
The standards are only in effect for one year, starting with the 2022-2023 school year, when the school system implements a new plan that relies on standardized test scores, census tracts and performance.
In February 2021, the Boston Parents Alliance for Academic Excellence sued the Boston School Board and the Superintendent, which oversees the city’s public school system, on behalf of 14 anonymous white and Asian students who claimed they had applied for admission to exam schools that fall. They tried to stop the council from implementing the plan.
A federal district court sided with the school system, finding that the revised admissions standards did not violate the Constitution and were racially neutral. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, holding in part that the Boston School Board’s use of neutral selection criteria to increase racial diversity was permitted by the Supreme Court.
The coalition appealed to the high court, arguing that the admissions standards were designed to reduce the number of Asian-American and white students admitted to the three exam schools. Parents argue that under the 1st Circuit’s decision, school districts can “overtly target” students based on their race.
“If the court dismisses the case, it will only embolden government officials to continue targeting disfavored racial groups, especially Asian Americans,” they argued in a statement. Archive.
But the Boston School Committee debate The Supreme Court’s decision is no longer in dispute. The challenge core admissions criteria were adopted for a year after the COVID-19 pandemic made existing exam processes unmanageable, the report said.
School district attorneys also said the interim enrollment plan was developed and ended before the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision.
“Nothing in this Court’s precedent requires public agencies to ignore whether their race-neutral policies may have disparate impacts on historically disadvantaged groups or even help reduce past disparate impacts,” they said.
Alito wrote that by deciding not to hear the case, the Supreme Court “has now twice refused to correct a clear constitutional error that threatens to perpetuate race-based affirmative action and disregard fair admissions of students,” referring to the 2023 years of cases.
The Supreme Court has been asked to intervene in two recent controversies over admissions policies at a prestigious Virginia high school and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
In February, the judges refuse challenge Thomas Jefferson Technical High School Admissions Criteria. Administrators say the policy is intended to alleviate socioeconomic and geographic barriers for prospective students.
The High Court also stated that it would Don’t stop at West Point Consideration of race in the admissions process comes amid a legal battle over its policy in a federal appeals court.
