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High court to review challenge to Montgomery magnet admissions lottery
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether parents challenging Montgomery County’s race-neutral magnet-school admissions policy must show that Asian American students experienced an overall disadvantage compared with their share of applicants. The case concerns lottery-based admissions at four middle schools and comes after two lower courts dismissed the parents’ claims.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Oct. 19 to hear a challenge to Montgomery County’s admissions system for four middle school magnet programs, setting up a review of what evidence families must provide to pursue claims of racial discrimination in a policy written without racial classifications.
The case was brought by the Association for Education Fairness, a group made up largely of Asian American parents. It argues that the lottery system reduces Asian American enrollment and violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. The court will consider whether challengers must show that the affected racial group suffered an aggregate disadvantage relative to its share of the applicant pool.
The lottery applies to magnet programs at Takoma Park and Eastern middle schools in the downcounty area, and Roberto Clemente and Martin Luther King Jr. middle schools in the upcounty area. The programs focus on humanities or science, technology, engineering and math. Grades and test scores are also part of the admissions process.
The association sued in 2020 over a policy that took effect in the 2021-22 school year. A federal district judge dismissed the case in 2022, finding the parents had not established a disparate impact on Asian American students or discriminatory intent. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in 2024.
Montgomery County Public Schools spokesperson Liliana López said the Supreme Court is considering a legal question about what plaintiffs must prove when challenging admissions criteria that are race-neutral on their face. She said the district remains committed to equitable access to advanced educational opportunities while the case proceeds.
The school system and supporters of the policy say the changes broadened access for students who had been underrepresented. In 2018, fewer than 10 Black and Latino students attended the upcounty magnet programs, according to figures cited in court filings. In the first year of the lottery, those students represented 33% of admissions at Martin Luther King Jr. and 41% at Clemente. At the two downcounty schools, Black and Latino students’ shares of magnet admissions rose from 23% at Takoma Park and 31% at Eastern to 37% and 40%, respectively, by 2021.
The Montgomery County NAACP branch, the Montgomery County Progressive Asian American Network, We Are CASA and AALEAD supported the policy in a joint statement. They said admissions should not depend on a student’s school poverty level, a family’s familiarity with the application process or access to preparation resources.
The association’s attorneys say the policy uses geography as a proxy to achieve racial outcomes and that courts have reached conflicting conclusions about how discrimination claims should be evaluated. Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the parents, also represented challengers to a Fairfax County, Virginia, high school admissions policy that the Supreme Court declined to review in 2024.
The Montgomery County case, Association for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education, is the second dispute involving the county school system that the Supreme Court has taken up in two years. The court ruled in 2025 that parents could opt their children out of lessons involving LGBTQ+-themed books. No hearing date has been announced in the magnet admissions case.