U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Maryland School Admissions Discrimination Case Involving Asian American Students
By Saqib S. Qureshi — SCN NEWS
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a challenge to the admissions policies of four selective public middle schools in Maryland, reviving a legal dispute over allegations that a lottery-based selection system discriminates against Asian American students. The justices accepted an appeal brought by a coalition of parents challenging Montgomery County's admissions procedures under the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, after lower federal courts rejected the lawsuit. The case will examine the legal standards for pursuing claims of intentional racial discrimination when an admissions policy does not explicitly classify applicants by race.
The lawsuit was brought by the Association for Education Fairness, a coalition of parents represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, against the Montgomery County Board of Education in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. The parents argue that changes to the admissions system reduced opportunities for academically qualified Asian American students to enter the county's highly selective magnet programs. They contend that the school district used selection criteria connected to socioeconomic circumstances to alter the racial composition of its student population, even though the admissions procedures do not expressly use race as a determining factor.
The dispute concerns four academically rigorous public middle schools offering specialized instruction in mathematics, science and the humanities for students in grades six through eight. The programs include those at Takoma Park Middle School in Silver Spring and Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Germantown. Admission is competitive, with students screened for academic potential before eligible applicants are entered into a lottery that determines placement in a magnet program or access to enriched instruction at their local schools.
Montgomery County introduced the lottery-based system during the 2021-2022 school year, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional school admissions procedures. Under the selection process, academic performance is assessed in relation to students from schools with comparable socioeconomic characteristics, including family income and poverty levels. The parent coalition argues that this approach disadvantages Asian American applicants attending high-performing elementary schools in relatively affluent neighborhoods, because their academic results are compared with those of similarly high-achieving students before they can qualify for the lottery.
The parents maintain that the selection process has reduced the number of Asian American students admitted to some of the magnet programs and that the district's stated interest in increasing diversity provides evidence of an unlawful discriminatory purpose. Their legal challenge invokes the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which restricts government discrimination based on race. The plaintiffs argue that a policy can violate constitutional protections even when it uses facially race-neutral criteria, if those criteria were adopted with the intention of disadvantaging students because of their racial background.
Montgomery County school officials have defended the admissions procedures, maintaining that the system evaluates academic qualifications and uses a lottery rather than assigning places according to race. The district has disputed the allegation that the policy intentionally discriminates against Asian American applicants and has argued that the lawsuit does not establish the necessary factual basis for a constitutional violation. School officials have also pointed to admissions figures showing that Asian American students continued to receive places in the magnet programs at rates exceeding their representation among applicants.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis dismissed the case in 2022, finding that the plaintiffs had not established that the challenged policy imposed a disproportionate burden on Asian American students. The judge also concluded that the allegations did not demonstrate discriminatory intent by school officials. The Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit subsequently upheld the dismissal, finding that the parents had not plausibly alleged that the admissions system produced a discriminatory impact against Asian American applicants.
The parents appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower courts applied an improper legal standard by requiring evidence of disproportionate harm to the racial group as a whole before allowing their intentional discrimination claim to proceed. Their lawyers maintain that constitutional protections apply to individual students and that an admissions policy should not be shielded from judicial scrutiny solely because members of a particular racial group continue to obtain a substantial share of available places. The school district disputes that interpretation and maintains that the allegations do not support a finding of intentional racial discrimination.
The Supreme Court's decision to hear the appeal follows its June 2023 ruling striking down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. In those cases, the justices concluded that the universities' consideration of applicants' race violated applicable equal protection requirements. The Maryland dispute raises a different question because the challenged school admissions system does not expressly assign preferences based on race, requiring the justices to consider how claims of discriminatory intent should be evaluated when selection criteria are facially neutral.
Similar legal challenges have been brought against selective public school admissions systems in other parts of the United States, including Virginia and Massachusetts. The Supreme Court declined to hear appeals involving those policies in 2024, leaving lower court decisions in place. The Maryland case now gives the justices an opportunity to address the legal threshold for claims alleging that public school districts have used neutral admissions procedures to achieve racial objectives that plaintiffs contend are unconstitutional.
The case comes as the administration of President Donald Trump continues efforts to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion programs in education and other institutions. Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has directed federal agencies to review or challenge certain diversity initiatives, while civil rights organizations and educational institutions have disputed the administration's interpretation of anti-discrimination requirements. The Maryland litigation, however, concerns a school district policy introduced before Trump's return to the White House and will be decided through the constitutional claims presented by the parties.
The justices are expected to hear oral arguments during the current Supreme Court term and issue a decision by the end of June 2027. Monday's order does not determine whether Montgomery County unlawfully discriminated against Asian American students or require immediate changes to the admissions system. The ruling will instead follow the court's consideration of whether the parents' allegations were properly dismissed, a question that could affect how similar constitutional challenges to selective public school admissions policies proceed in federal courts.