Moms Protest Fairfax School Board over Refusal to Honor Ruling against Discriminatory Admissions Policy

Since the grassroots coalition of minority moms, dads, and their children won their anti-discrimination lawsuit challenging the Fairfax County Public Schools’ equity admissions policy, the school board has refused to comply with the decision, persisting with litigation in the hopes of reversing the court’s ruling.

On Thursday night, the Coalition for TJ, the grassroots organization that’s been fighting to restore the competitive high school’s merit-based admission standards, congregated at the Fairfax school board meeting to question its board members.

After rallying before the meeting, Asra Nomani, the Asian co-founder of Coalition for TJ, took the lectern to “hold the school board accountable on the Thomas Jefferson case,” she told National Review.

Nomani compared the board’s actions to the way Virginia obstructed racial integration in public schools during the Civil Rights era. She noted that the Hunton & Williams law firm, now Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, which represents Fairfax County in the Thomas Jefferson case, also defended the Virginia municipalities opposing desegregation in the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education. 

“Of the teachers who stood here, did you see an Asian face among them?,” Nomani asked the board. “All your staff over there representing Fairfax County in this new ‘beautiful’ movement that you’re calling equity,” she said motioning to the side of the room, “do you see any Asian faces over there?”

“But behind me, do you see Asian faces? Yes! Am I an Asian face? Yes!…You move the camera angle so you cannot see the people…for the last two years you have been trying to make us invisible. But a federal judge has ruled that, in fact, you are going to go down in history just like I told you you would,” she told the board members.

Last Friday, Fairfax County filed a motion with the 4th Circuit of Appeals to secure a stay on a federal judge’s February ruling, which determined that the equity admissions policy was unconstitutional and ordered it to be discontinued effective immediately. At a hearing this morning, “the district court flatly refused to grant the stay,” Pacific Legal Foundation, the law firm representing Coalition for TJ, confirmed.

“You are the new face of racism,” Nomani told the board Thursday evening, many members of which she said were smirking and shrugging. She brought copies of journalist Luke Rosiak’s book Race to the Bottom, which purportedly exposes Fairfax County’s record of prejudice in its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. “I hope you see yourself in the pages of history,” she declared.

After Nomani finished speaking, the security guards, whose services she says FCPS regularly enlists at meetings, started engaging in peculiar behavior, escorting one of the speakers down the aisle of the room, Nomani told National Review. One Coalition for TJ mom was miffed by what she considered an effort by security to play favorites with speakers to intimidate her and said, “I knows how to walk,” Nomani said. Nomani stood at the front as she questioned why the guards were positioned so closely to her.

“It’s manipulative. They try to pit parent against parent, authority against parent, security against parent, and then when all else fails they just run for the hills,” Nomani said. The first two rows of the room were roped off with caution tape, almost as if to create a buffer between the attendees and the school board, she added.

“These are immigrant moms behind me. I’m not trying to call out white men but all the school board cares about is white supremacy right now. I’m a woman-of-color and there are white men stepping forward in a show of power. I thought, ‘They are their own definition of racism now,'” Nomani told National Review.

Most members of the Coalition for Thomas Jefferson are racial minorities who have alleged that their children, most of whom are Asian, have been discriminated against by the school’s new equity-focused admission process, which resulted in significantly less Asian student enrollment after its first year of implementation, the lower court found.

The policy eliminated the entrance exam and awarded bonus points for “experience factors” such as attendance at a middle school deemed historically underrepresented at TJ, eligibility for free and reduced-price meals, and status as an English-language learner.

The moms then started shouting “racist, racist, racist” at the school board, prompting the board members to leave the meeting mid-session.

“I fear so much for them because they are all parents asking ‘can we actually speak up to the principal?’ because many come from countries that do not have public engagement, where you go to jail for questioning authority,” Nomani told National Review.

When asked for comment, FCPS deferred to the video livestream of the meeting.

“Why do they run? That’s the biggest question with these people. They stare at us with smirks on their faces or they have no emotion so you literally feel like you’re speaking to a wall because they don’t engage at all. Another couple moms later, a mother talked about her daughter’s suicide and there was totally no reaction,” Nomani claimed.

“They want to call us the threat but we’re literally moms in our 40s and 50s with teenaged and middle school kids. I don’t know what they think we are but all I had was a pen in my hands and a pile of books in my arms. I’m all of five feet. That’s what they always done with us as Asians, always thrusting their own racism in thinking that we are supposed to be submissive and quiet and just take it,” she said.

Thomas Jefferson had argued after it lost in court last month that it was “literally impossible” to suspend the equity admissions policy as it was too late in the school year to administer the merit-based test to prospective applicants. Nomani, however, said her group identified a number of test providers in the area, some of which can return results in a day.

“From the bench, the judge noted that the school board was put on notice six months ago and to be prepared for this outcome, and the ‘inconvenience’ they’re facing now after ignoring that warning does not warrant a stay. Forcing children to undergo another year (or more, as this case will likely be appealed) under a discriminatory admissions policy constitutes irreparable harm,” PLF wrote in a statement provided to National Review.

The school board is not likely to succeed on its appeal to the Fourth Circuit, the statement predicted.