A former Wall Street Journal writer and parent of a Fairfax County, Virginia, public school student criticized the school board for supporting the elimination of a race-blind admissions policy at the county’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.
Asra Nomani, the vice president of the advocacy group Parents Defending Freedom and the mother of a senior at the magnet school, said members ignored parents’ concerns about such a change.
“We plead with you, as Asians, as an immigrant — I came at the age of 4, I knew no English — and you didn’t listen to us,” Nomani said Thursday, rebuking officials for criticizing concerned parents as they lobbied against the admissions policy change.
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“And now I sit here, listening to these empty proclamations and declarations that you’re making about your great value of Asian Americans,” she said. “Do you know that just a few weeks ago, in social-emotional learning at [Thomas Jefferson High School], our students were told that if they do salsa dancing, it amounts to appropriation and that they needed to check their racism? And that is our mostly minority, mostly Asian students.”
“And then, today, we get this vacuous survey from you [Superintendent] Dr. Brabrand, and you dare to tell us that you’re going to consider removing the one policy that parents have to defend their students from indoctrination and activism, the policy that makes certain that anything taught in our school that is controversial must be presented fairly?” Nomani said.
“You have to just think for yourself. If you have to remove a policy like that, how can you possibly be doing anything good?” she continued.
Nomani addressed several members of the board by name, recalling their comments, including one who she said called the group advocating against the admissions policy change “racist.”
“You all need to have a conscience,” she said as she was being urged away from the microphone.
Fairfax County Public Schools faces multiple lawsuits, including one filed March 10, alleging discrimination against Asian American students after officials made changes to the high school’s admissions process. Asian American students made up 70% of the school’s student body in 2019-2020.
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“It is in that vein that the Board fervently supported removing the historical barriers and inequities faced by students from culturally and ethnically diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, while still ensuring that [Thomas Jefferson School] maintains its high academic standards,” a spokesperson for the school district said in a statement after the March 10 lawsuit was filed.
