New admissions rules at an elite magnet School in Virginia discriminate against Asian Americans, a federal judge ruled Friday. The judge struck down the process at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as TJ, reports Hannah Natanson in the New York Times.

To admit more Black and Hispanic students, the Fairfax County Public Schools board eliminated a test in favor of “experience factors” such as socioeconomic background, and guaranteed eligibility to top students at middle schools that hadn’t qualified many students to TJ in the past.

The percentages of Black and Hispanic students in the incoming class more than tripled under the new rules; more Whites also were admitted. Enrollment by Asian Americans fell sharply.

“Today’s decision is a victory for all students, all families and the United States of America,” said Asra Nomani, parent of a TJ graduate and co-founder of the Coalition for TJ, which filed the lawsuit. “It is victory for equality under the law, merit education and the American Dream.”

Across the country, Asian-American students are more likely than their classmates to earn high grades and test scores and qualify for selective high schools.

Asian students have become “a convenient scapegoat for ‘anti-racists’,” writes Nomani in UnHerd.

In the months when America was rocked by race riots, self-described “equity warriors” described the Asian, mostly immigrant families of TJ as “white-adjacent” and “resource hoarders”. The white principal, Ann Bonitatibus, told us to check our “privileges.”

Race-based admissions are replacing merit at other selective schools, writes Nomani. In San Francisco, Asian Americans led a successful recall against school board members who voted to end merit admissions at Lowell High School. As at TJ, “activists waged a war on merit at Lowell, in the name of “equity.”