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Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) is organizing a talk on key issues and the status of landmark case to raise community awareness.
When: Sunday, May 22, 2022: 1 PM -2 PM ET
Link to register: https://forms.gle/Uh4uxWm3ns2AKM2v5
Speakers
Asra Q. Nomani — American author and former Georgetown University professor, born in India. She is co-founder of the Coalition for TJ and the Pearl Project, an investigative reporting project fighting for justice for Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and murdered in 2002.
Glenn S. Miller – Harvard Law School alum who practices law in Virginia and co-founder of Coalition for TJ. Parent of a TJ Class of 2022 student.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-miller-82626a17/
Himanshu Verma – IIT Bombay Alumni, Businessman / IT Consultant, and parent of a middle school student aspiring to go to TJHSST. Parent advocate spearheading Coalition for TJ data team.
Background
We will discuss the history, key issues, and status of the landmark case, Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, fighting anti-Asian discrimination in admissions to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, heard recently by the Supreme Court of the United States. The school is known as TJ.
The academic excellence at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is very well known. US News and World Report just again ranked it the No. 1 high school in the US. (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings). Many people choose to live in northern Virginia, so their child can get a high-quality education, especially in STEM, one day perhaps attending TJ.
One of the ways the school developed a student body with high academic excellence was through a challenging and fair race-blind merit admissions process, based on the first round of tests. In December 2020, the school board eliminated the merit-based admissions tests and replaced them with a new subjective process that included “bonus points” for “experience factors” that the Coalition for TJ argues are proxies for race and racial discrimination. The school board explicitly said it wanted TJ’s racial demographic to match the racial demographic of students in Fairfax County, Va. For many years, students at the school have been 70% Asian, while the Asian students in the county are 20%. The school board said the new admission process was an effort to increase the percentage of “underrepresented” Black and Hispanic students at TJ. In February 2022, federal judge Claude Hilton said that while the intention may be worthy, the new admissions process is “patently unconstitutional,” discriminatory, anti-Asian, and illegal. The school board is appealing the decision.
A group of parents, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, are fighting to restore the merit-based admissions process.
Please join us to understand the story of the brave immigrant parents standing up as leaders in the United States for children everywhere, the status of the case, and the next steps ahead.
Learn more here: https://coalitionfortj.net
