Supreme Court Declines Challenge After Stunning Appeal Reversal 2024-02-22 01:05

yesterday the US Supreme Court made a decision that was quite shocking to most people who actually follow the court closely although to understand this decision as well as the implications that it has for the whole nation I need to give you a bit of backstory here to start with there's a school located about 20 minutes outside of Washington DC called the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology this school offers classes from 9th to 12th grade and two years ago it was nationally ranked as the number one best public high school in America at least according to the US News and World Report it's basically what's known as a magnet school there are 19900 seats available and talented students apply to get in based on Merit however like most schools of this type here in America the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology they had what the administration considered a problem that's because the demographics of the student body in that high school they did not reflect the demographics of the general population there was not enough black students and there were too many Asian students now in a normal meritocratic society where race is not really a factor this wouldn't be a problem however in the year 2020 amidst the backdrop of the BLM movement the school board of Fairfax County they made the decision to change their admissions criteria in order to rebalance the demographics of the student body now in terms of the actual admissions process here is how the change manifested in Practical terms quote the school board stopped requiring a $100 application fee and standardized tests for admission it also adopted a holistic review process that considers experience factors such as a student's eligibility for free school lunch their status as an English language learner or attending a historically underrepresented public Middle School the school board also said the admissions process must be race neutral and admissions decision makers will not be provided an applicants name race ethnicity or sex meaning that in order to reshape the incoming freshman class and to stop so many Asian-American students from getting admitted the board decided to drop the use of standardized tests as well as to introduce experience factors into the admissions process essentially even though they did make a point to mention that the new admissions criteria would be race neutral they essentially used proxies to attain their desired effect of rebalancing the racial demographic of the high school and as a practical matter they were quite effective after this change was made the proportion of Black and Hispanic students it went from 4% up to 18% while the proportion of Asian students it went down from 73% to 54% and also just as a fun aside during that same time period the school went from being ranked the number one high school in the country to the number five high school in the country but that part might just be a coincidence regardless because of this change Asian-American parents and Asian-American students they formed an organization called Coalition for TJ and in March of 2021 they filed a federal lawsuit against the Fairfax County School Board alleging that this change in policy directly discriminated against asian-americans here's specifically how they describe what was taking place in this particular School quote the Thomas Jefferson School Board overhauled its admissions to TJ in 2020 to racially balance the Freshman Class by excluding asian-americans by removing standardized tests from its admissions analysis coupled with adding experience factors the school reduced their percentage of Asian-American students being accepted now initially after about a year of legal back and forth the Lower Court ruled in favor of this Coalition specifically the lower District Court they granted the Coalition forti a summary judgment and they ordered the school to return to their previous admission policies quote The District Court found that direct and circumstantial evidence supported the claim that changes were made to the admissions policy for discriminating on the basis of race to the detriment of Asian-American applicants that Court issued an injunction against implementation of the changes however the school board they appealed that decision to the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and after about another year and a half of legal back and forth the appeals court ruled in favor of the school board specifically the appeals court issued a split 2 to1 decision reversing the lower Court's ruling and allowing the tommer Jefferson High School to continue with their new admissions policy but the appeal Court's rationale was likely not what you'd expect essentially their decision was twofold first of all they ruled that even with this change in policy asian-americans still had the best success at getting admitted to this particular School quote the race neutral policy spurred an increase of nearly 1,000 more students applying to attend the high school and more than half of the admission offers extended went to Asian-American students black students received less than 8% Hispanic students were given slightly more than 11% and white students received more than 22% of the offers meaning according to the Court's rationale here even with the new policy even though it took asian-americans from 73% to 54% it still made Asians the most successful at getting admitted and therefore quote the policy visits no racially disparate impact on Asian-American students indeed those students have had greater success in sec securing admissions to TJ under the policy than students from any other racial or ethnic group and so that was part one of their rationale that even though the percentage was cut by roughly 20% since Asians were still the most represented the policy was somehow not discriminatory second the appeals court decided that the drop in Asian-American students at the Thomas Jefferson High School it did not fall below the average percentage of Asian-American students in the general area where the high school was located and therefore again it proved that the policy was not discriminatory however if you really think about that second point it's rather wild here's specifically what it means in Practical terms let's say in the city of Alexandria the average high school has about 6% Asian students while Thomas Jefferson High School used to have 73% Asian students then after the school board implemented their change in the year 2020 in order to change the racial demographics Thomas Jefferson High School decreased their Asian students from 73% down to 54% now that's of course a big drop but since it did not go below below the Baseline of the other schools in the area well the court meaning the appeals court decided that it was still okay meaning in Practical terms that this racially discriminatory policy should not be considered discrimination because it wasn't effective enough now as you would imagine the Coalition for TJ they were not pleased with this ruling and therefore they appeal this decision all the way up to the US Supreme Court here's part of what they wrote in their petition quote despite evidence that the board chose the new criteria to further its racial balancing goal and evidence that the policy substantially reduced both the Raw number and the proportion of asian-americans admitted the fourth circuit held that the admissions changes did not violate the equal protection clause and here's where things you can say got interesting because shortly after the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled as they did in this case the US Supreme Court in a separate case overturned affirmative action specifically back in June of 2023 the US Supreme Court issued a ruling in a separate case called students for fair admissions versus Harvard College wherein they officially ended the so-called affirmative action in college admissions and so here was a general timeline of events so you can keep everything in mind in May of 2023 the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Coalition for TJ in June of 2023 just one month later in a separate case the US Supreme Court overturned affirmative action and then in August of 2023 the Coalition for TJ filed their appeal to the US Supreme Court for their case all right just to pause here for a super quick moment listen you know that this is an election year meaning that quite literally anything can happen during the last election year there was a pandemic you had RI on the street looting in pretty much every major city and supermarkets began running out of food as well as toilet paper and so before we have a sequel to that this year Well prepare yourself and your family right now and the best company to use is today's sponsor my Patriot Supply they've helped quite literally millions of Americans stock up for an emergency and right now to our viewers they're offering a great promotional sale heading over to prepare 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High School in order to make that decision consistent with the other affirmative action case to make it consistent across the board but you would be wrong that's because just yesterday today the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case in a simple unsigned order they threw out the petition that came from the Coalition for TJ without any explanation now the way that these petitions work is that at least four out of the nine Supreme Court justices they must vote in favor of granting a petition in order to move it to the next stage to the oral argument stage and apparently that did not happen here as to the reason for why they voted against hearing the case well that's not clear because the unsigned order did not have an explanation however alongside this unsigned order came a descent you can see it up on your screen it was written by Justice samalo and it was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and in very strong words Jus a samalo explains why he disagrees with the court and that if it was up to him he would have granted the appeal here's part of what he wrote in this descent quote the Supreme Court's willingness to swallow the apparent decision below is hard to understand we should wipe the decision off the books and because the court refuses to do so I must respectfully desent the fourth circuit decision is based on a patently incorrect and dangerous understanding of what a plaintiff must show to prove intentional raise discrimination the lower court found that direct and circumstantial evidence supported the claim that changes were made to the admissions policy for discriminating on the basis of race to the detriment of Asian American applicants that Court issued an injunction against implementation of the changes but a divided fourth circuit panel reversed finding that the claim failed simply because the challenged changes did not reduce the percentage of Asian-American admittees below the percentage of Asian-American students in the schools in the jurisdiction served by the magnet school what the fourth circuit majority held in essence is that intentional racial discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe this reasoning is indefensible and it cries out for correction and yet for some reason that won't happen because besides justices Sam Alo and Clarence Thomas there were not two other Supreme Court Justices that wanted to take up the case and as such the appeal Court's decision stands and the new admission policy will remain and as you would imagine the plaintiffs in the case meaning the Coalition forj were not thrilled with this decision here's for instance what the co-founder of the Coalition said in the statement following the US Supreme Court decision quote today the American dream was dealt a blow but we remain committed to protecting the values of Merit equality and justice and we will prevail for the future of our children and for the nation we love and embrace for the courageous families who have tirelessly fought for the principles that our nation holds dear this decision is a setback but not a death blow to our commitment to the American dream which which promises equal opportunity and justice for all and so that is where the situation currently stands if I myself ever get an opportunity to actually interview some of these Supreme Court Justices I will ask them about this case otherwise if you'd like to read the details of this case including the full descent from Justice Sam Alo I'll throw all those links down into the description box below this video for you to Pro at your own Leisure which I should mention is that same description box right below those like And subscribe buttons both of which I hope you take a quick moment to smash so that the YouTube algorithm will be quite literally forced to share this video out to ever more people now lastly if you you enjoy today's content and you're just thinking to yourself man I love this content I just wish Roman would publish more episodes 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