Score a big victory for “equity.” The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, ranked the top high school in the country by U.S. News & World Report two years ago, has fallen to 14th place, tweets the Coalition for TJ.
TJ had been the center of an admissions controversy after progressives, who found it scandalous that 70% of the school’s students were of Asian ethnic origin, rejiggered its admissions criteria to make it more demographically diverse. The revised policy, which did succeed in increasing the admission of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, survived legal challenges that went as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.
But not to worry. By selecting only the highest-achieving kids, TJ had been perpetuating gross inequality with other high schools. Insofar as its standards have been modified and its rankings have tumbled, the inequality gap with peer schools has diminished. Some observers expect TJ’s rankings will fall and the gap to shrink even further as older students admitted under the ancien regime graduate and are replaced by students admitted under the new, more equitable standards.
But even then, the journey to equity has a long way to go. The very concept of academic excellence is an artifact of White heteronormative patriarchal privilege that has been embraced by White-adjacent Asians. Virginia schools will not be truly equitable until all schools are average — none deemed better or worse than the others — and, indeed, until all gradations of excellence within all schools are extinguished. Social justice won’t be achieved until we’re all scrabbling in the dirt together. — JAB
