Justices allow admissions policy at prestigious high school
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned away a plea from parents to block a new admissions policy at a prestigious high school in northern Virginia that a lower court has found discriminates against Asian American students.
The high court did not explain its order Monday allowing the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology to continue using its admissions policy while the Fairfax County School Board appeals the lower court ruling.
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said they would have granted the request from the parents' group, Coalition for TJ, to suspend the admissions policy.
In February, the group persuaded U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton that a new policy that has boosted Black and Hispanic representation amounted to impermissible "racial balancing" at the selective school near the nation's capital. It is often ranked as one of the best public high schools in the country.
Asian American students constituted more than 70% of the student body. Under the new policy, used to admit the school's current freshman class, Asian American representation decreased to 54%. Black students increased from 1% to 7% and Hispanic representation increased from 3% to 11%.
Hilton had ordered the new policy suspended, but the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, said it could be used while the case continues to play out in the courts.
In a statement Monday evening, Coalition for TJ said: "We were hopeful that we would win this battle to vacate the stay in the highest court of the land, but our struggle for justice is not over. We are not at all dissuaded."
Court won't revive ban on secret filming at slaughterhouses
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Kansas to revive a law, earlier struck down by lower courts, that banned secret filming at slaughterhouses and other livestock facilities.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a ruling by a federal appeals court panel that the so-called ag-gag law violated the First Amendment by stifling speech critical of animal agriculture.
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision ruled that even if deception is used to enter private property, Kansas may not discriminate based on whether the person intends to harm or help the enterprise.
The appellate ruling upheld a permanent injunction issued by a federal judge in 2020.
The Kansas law made it a crime for anyone to take a picture or video at an animal facility without the owner's consent or to enter the facility under false pretenses.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Center for Food Safety were among the groups that challenged the ban.
Federal appeals courts considering similar laws in Iowa and Idaho had split over the issue, raising Kansas' hope that the high court would step in.
