Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin formally directed the state’s attorney general Jason Miyares to investigate allegations of academic discrimination at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria on Tuesday.
Youngkin’s request comes in response to a series of reports which suggest that school administrators delayed the announcement of National Merit commendations for Asian students as part of a racial-equity push.
School leaders waited for about a month to distribute certificates to National Merit commended students and semi-finalists, past the October 31 deadline for students to note the awards on their applications for early acceptance to select colleges, according to a report in City Journal and the New York Post.
The report by journalist and activist Asra Nomani links the delay of National Merit awards to Thomas Jefferson high’s equity efforts, and its new “equal outcomes for every student, without exception” strategy. Most of the students who had their award notification delayed were Asian, Nomani reported.
“I am stunned by news reporting alleging that information about National Merit Awards, as determined by student PSAT scores, was withheld from students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology until after important deadlines for college scholarships had passed,” Youngkin wrote in an official statement released Tuesday afternoon.
“I believe this failure may have caused material harm to those students and their parents, and that this failure may have violated the Virginia Human Rights Act,” Youngkin added.
Initial reporting noted that the school’s principal, Ann Bonitaibus, told a concerned parent in an email that while National Merit certificates were received in mid-October, and signed within 48 hours, the awards were not distributed by homeroom teachers until November 14. The delay was viewed as highly detrimental by many parents because it prevented students from including such accolades on early college applications.
“Teachers dropped the certificates unceremoniously on students’ desks,” Nomani wrote.
According to the original Post article, one concerned parent, Shawna Yashar, was informed by the school’s director of student services Brandon Kosatka that administrators underplayed the awards as part of an intentional effort. “We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” Kosatka supposedly told Yashar during a phone call.
The initial reporting also featured a series of redacted emails from concerned parents to Thomas Jefferson administrators expressing growing frustration with school policies in Fairfax County.
“Mr. Kosataka, you lied to me. I do not appreciate that. As someone who has been responsible for these notifications for 15 years you undoubtably [sic] knew how they worked,” one parent wrote in an email from November.
The school had earlier run afoul in February 2022 when a federal judge acknowledged that the institution had changed admissions procedures in a bid to restrict Asian American enrollment in the name of “racial diversity.”