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Supreme Court turns away affirmative action dispute over Virginia high school’s admissions policies
Washington — The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a challenge to the admissions policy at a prestigious Virginia high school that administrators say is designed to mitigate socioeconomic and geographic barriers for prospective students.
The decision from the high court not to take up the appeal by a group of parents challenging the admissions policies at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology leaves intact a lower court decision upholding the criteria, which school officials argue is race neutral. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit concluded last year that the goal of the program is to foster diversity among the school’s student body, though the parents that brought the case said it impermissibly discriminated against Asian-American students.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s decision not to hear the case. In a dissenting opinion joined by Thomas, Alito said the admissions model adopted by the high school “has been trumpeted to potential replicators as a blueprint for evading” the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision.
“The holding below effectively licenses official actors to discriminate against any racial group with impunity as long as that group continues to perform at a higher rate than other groups. That is indefensible,” Alito wrote. He concluded that “the Court’s willingness to swallow the aberrant decision below is hard to understand. We should wipe the decision off the books.”
Affirmative action at the Supreme Court
The case is the latest involving affirmative action to arrive at the court since it issued its landmark ruling last June invalidating the race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. In the wake of its 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has already been asked to temporarily stop the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from considering race in its admissions process, but declined to do so.
The challenge to West Point’s policies arose out of a footnote in the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases, in which he said the Supreme Court’s decision did not apply to the nation’s service academies. Roberts’ opinion also warned that schools shouldn’t try to get around the court’s affirmative action ruling through application essays or other means, writing “‘[w]hat cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly.'”
This case involves the admissions process at an Alexandria, Virginia-based high school, which is considered to be one of the best in the country. A group of parents in Fairfax County, a wealthy enclave of Washington, D.C., argued that admissions criteria imposed at Thomas Jefferson High School seek to “indirectly” use race as a factor, which the Supreme Court said would be unlawful.
Admission to the magnet school, known as TJ, was previously based on standardized tests and a combination of GPA, teacher recommendations and essays until 2020. But that year, the Fairfax County School Board, which oversees the high school, eliminated entrance exams from Thomas Jefferson’s admissions process and put in place a holistic system.
Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The school board argued in court filings that under the old admissions processes, admitted classes overwhelmingly were made up of students from a small subset of Fairfax County’s wealthiest areas. But under the new program, seats are reserved for top students from each of the county’s middle schools. The remaining spots are awarded to highest-evaluated applicants, as well as to students based on a number of socioeconomic factors, including whether students are from low-income families, are learning English as a second language or attended a “historically underrepresented” middle school.
The policy is race-neutral, according to the Fairfax County School Board, and admissions evaluators do not know an applicant’s name, gender, race or ethnicity. They also cannot keep track of the racial composition of an incoming class during the admissions process, the board said in court papers.
But a grassroots group of parents called The Coalition for TJ sued the Fairfax County School Board in 2021, arguing that the revamped admissions policy is unconstitutional because it discriminated against Asian-American applicants.
In 2021, the first year under the new system, fewer Asian-American applicants were admitted than the prior year and the share of Asian-American students receiving admissions offers fell from 73% to 54%. Every other racial group saw an increase in admissions numbers, according to court filings: Admissions offers to White students rose from 18% to 22%; offers to Black students grew from less than 2% to nearly 8%; and offers to Hispanic students jumped from 3% to 11%.
A federal district court in Alexandria ruled for the coalition in February 2022, finding that the board’s redesigned policy was “designed to increase Black and Hispanic enrollment which would, by necessity, decrease the representation of Asian-Americans at TJ,” and adopted with discriminatory intent.
U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton blocked the board from implementing the policy, but a divided panel of three federal appeals court judges eventually reversed the ruling and upheld the admissions program.
The 4th Circuit concluded that “the undisputed facts show only that the Board intended to improve the overall socioeconomic and geographic diversity of TJ’s student body,” and found that the coalition failed to prove that the board was motivated by discriminatory intent.
“The challenged admissions policy’s central aim is to equalize opportunity for those students hoping to attend one of the nation’s best public schools, and to foster diversity of all stripes among TJ’s student body,” the 4th Circuit said in its 2-1 decision. It continued: “Expanding the array of student backgrounds in the classroom serves, at minimum, as a legitimate interest in the context of public primary and secondary schools. And that is the primary and essential effect of the challenged admissions policy.”
The Supreme Court was asked to weigh in at an earlier stage in the proceedings and denied a request from the Coalition for TJ for emergency relief in April 2022, more than a year before its affirmative action ruling. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted the group’s request to block the admissions policy.
The parents returned to the Supreme Court in August, asking the justices to decide whether the board violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause when it overhauled the admissions criteria at the high school. Citing the court’s June affirmative action decision, the group warned that its “guarantees … might mean little if schools could accomplish the same discriminatory result through race-neutral proxies.”
The coalition told the court in a filing that while it has said racial balancing through racial classifications is impermissible, it has not yet explicitly addressed whether student body diversity can be achieved through race-neutral means.
“The longer this question is not resolved, the more incentive school districts (and now, universities) will have to develop workarounds that enable them to racially discriminate without using racial classifications,” its lawyers wrote.
But the Fairfax County School Board argued that the new policy removes socioeconomic barriers to admission to Thomas Jefferson High School and is race neutral and race blind.
“The policy did not in fact result in a student body that matches the demographics of the County, maintains predetermined percentages of any racial group, or otherwise reflects racial balance of any sort,” they said in a filing.
The board said there was no evidence supporting the coalition’s “reckless” claim that Thomas Jefferson’s admissions criteria were changed to discriminate against Asian-Americans, and noted that more Asian-American students from poor families living in less affluent areas of Fairfax County were admitted under the new policy.
CBS News
UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione expected to waive extradition on Thursday
HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — Luigi Mangione, charged in the early December murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, could be back in New York sooner rather than later.
An attorney for Mangione told CBS News New York on Wednesday he will waive extradition at his hearing in Pennsylvania on Thursday morning. That could put the suspect in front of a New York City judge for an arraignment on murder charges within hours.
“If he waives extradition, that should be quite quick,” said Anna Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School. “The idea is we want to be able to get him over here to answer the charges that are pending here in New York, so in a matter of a day or two at most.”
Cominsky was asked what the benefit would be of Mangione waiving extradition on Thursday.
“The benefit is he gets his New York case to start. We already know that Pennsylvania has said they are not going to move forward with their case until the New York case is completed, and so this means that once he’s here, he can actually be arraigned and the case can begin with respect to his New York charges,” she said.
If for some reason Mangione ends up contesting his extradition, a spokesman said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will quickly sign a special warrant that could get him back to New York City in a matter of days or weeks.
CBS News New York has learned new details about Mangione’s communication in the Pennsylvania prison where he’s being held. The 26-year-old suspect has received 40 emails and 53 pieces of mail since his arrest last week at an Altoona McDonald’s, and has had 158 deposits into his commissary account. He has also had three visitors. Not from family, but rather his three attorneys, including Manhattan prosecutor-turned-defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo.
Luigi Mangione indicted on murder, terrorism charges
Mangione was indicted Tuesday on 11 charges, including first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, in the brazen assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month.
“This was a killing that, it was intended to evoke terror, and we’ve seen that reaction,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Tuesday.
“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock, attention and intimidation,” Bragg continued. “It occurred in one of the most bustling parts of our city, threatening the safety of local residents and tourists alike, commuters and business people just starting out on their day.”
The indictment also confirmed the words “deny” and “depose” were written on shell casings found at the scene, and “delay” was written on one of the bullets, an apparent nod to the “three Ds of insurance,” a phase used by critics of the industry.
“We really need to see more, with respect to why is it that the prosecutor believes that they have evidence that supports that terrorism charge. Why is it that they believe that it wasn’t just an intent to kill an individual but also to terrorize others, to put fear in others, which is required in order to substantiate that,” Cominsky said.
“We don’t celebrate murders”
The NYPD flagged what appears to be a wave of online support for Mangione from people expressing anger toward the health care industry, along with serious online threats since Thompson’s murder.
“There is no heroism in what Mangione did. This was a senseless act of violence, it was a cold and calculated crime that stole a life and put New Yorkers at risk,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
“We don’t celebrate murders and we don’t lionize the killing of anyone, and any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice,” Tisch added.
CBS News
EPA grants California waiver to ban sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035; Trump administration likely to block
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday granted California its request to enforce vehicle emissions standards stricter than federal rules, including the state’s ban on sales of new gasoline-powered cars.
The EPA granted two waivers to the California Air Resources Board to allow full implementation of its regulation requiring all new car sales to be zero-emission by 2035 and a second rule lowering emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks and off-road vehicles.
The stricter rules would also set interim quotas for zero-emission vehicles. Starting with 2026 models, 35% of new cars, SUVs and small pickups sold in California would be required to be zero-emission vehicles, with quotas increasing each year until 2035.
The quotas would allow 20% of zero-emission cars sold to be plug-in hybrids. The rules would not affect used vehicles, allowing gas-powered car and trucks to remain on the roads.
Other states that have followed California’s lead on stricter emissions rules are weighing whether or not to also adopt the ban on gas cars.
Trump administration seeks to block California rules
California’s strict emission rules will likely see an immediate challenge from the incoming administration. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to bar the state from setting its own rules on emissions, which his first administration did in 2019 by revoking the state’s EPA waiver. The move prompted California and 22 other states to sue the administration, a lawsuit that became moot when President Joe Biden took office and reversed the Trump administration policy.
“Clean cars are here to stay. The Biden-Harris Administration reaffirmed what we’ve known for decades — California can rise to the challenge of protecting our people by cleaning our air and cutting pollution,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a prepared statement. “Naysayers like President-elect Trump would prefer to side with the oil industry over consumers and American automakers, but California will continue fostering new innovations in the market.”
Last month, Newsom announced the state would renew a rebate program for electric vehicles if the incoming Trump administration follows through on its threat to eliminate the federal tax credit of $7,500.
Efforts by the incoming administration to block California’s emissions standards will likely prompt a series of legal challenges that could delay any action.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a narrow case on whether the oil and gas industry has the standing to sue California over its tailpipe emission standards.
California’s battle to cut pollution levels
In granting California the waiver requests, the EPA said its review found that opponents did not meet the burden to show how either program is inconsistent with the federal Clean Air Act.
“California has longstanding authority to request waivers from EPA to protect its residents from dangerous air pollution coming from mobile sources like cars and trucks,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement. “Today’s actions follow through on EPA’s commitment to partner with states to reduce emissions and act on the threat of climate change.”
California established the country’s first tailpipe emissions standards in 1966 and is the only state eligible for a waiver to the federal Clean Air Act of 1970, giving the EPA the authority to regulate pollution nationwide. The Clean Air Act also allows other states to adopt California’s standards. Since the Clean Air Act was established, the EPA has granted California more than 75 waivers for its vehicle emissions program.
Major automakers such as BMW, Ford, Honda, Stellantis and Volkswagen have adopted California’s current emission rules. Newsom said in a press release Wednesday that millions of Californians and other Americans have already switched to clean vehicles and more than two million zero-emission vehicles have been sold in the state.
Industry group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which has consistently spoken out against California’s stricter emission rules, said Wednesday it expects President-elect Trump to revoke the waiver in 2025.
“We’ve said the country should have a single, national standard to reduce carbon in transportation, but the question about the general authority of California to establish a vehicle emissions program – and for other states to follow that program – is ultimately something for policymakers and the courts to sort out,” the group said in a press release.
Environmental groups hail EPA decision on California emissions
The advocacy group Earthjustice said the EPA’s decision would mean cars in the state would largely be zero-emission by the 2050s and the rule on heavy-duty truck emissions would “deliver critical health benefits to people affected by the worst polluters on the roads: large diesel trucks.”
“This might read like checking a bureaucratic box, but EPA’s approval is a critical step forward in protecting our lungs from pollution and our wallets from the expenses of combustion fuels,” said Earthjustice director of Right To Zero campaign Part Cort in a press release. “The gradual shift in car sales to zero-emissions models will cut smog and household costs while growing California’s clean energy workforce. Cutting truck pollution will help clear our skies of smog.”
The National Resources Defense Council said in a press release that Congress has long recognized the state’s ability to set stronger emissions standards which has help California spur innovation and save lives.
“These waivers allow California – and states that chose to align with it – to curb the pollution spewing from tailpipes and address the impacts of the climate crisis,” said NRDC director of clean vehicles Kathy Harris. “California decided that transitioning to cleaner and zero-emission vehicles is the best way to address the unique burdens it faces. This is exactly how our system of federalism should work. If other states don’t like California’s approach, they don’t need to follow it. But no one should object to the longstanding authority of states to act to protect their residents.”
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