Harry Jackson, a black Naval Academy graduate and Northern Virginia community leader, blasted “paternalistic white liberals” in a Washington Post op-ed defending admission standards at the elite Thomas Jefferson High School this week, as parents speak out against the injection of critical race theory into the school.
Despite the insistence of white liberals and others on the radical left who say the school’s standards actively oppress black and Hispanic students, Jackson, who is a retired Naval Officer and NAACP member, as well as a Thomas Jefferson High School parent involved with the school community, says the stringent academic standards are a part of the school’s very fabric and a key to its success.
“The school has for decades embodied the best spirit of education for young people with high aspirations, thanks to strong admission standards and demanding curriculum,” Jackson wrote.
As previously reported by National File, amid left-wing efforts to massively alter academic admissions and curriculum using critical race theory nationwide, officials at Fairfax County Public Schools directed administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School – a magnet school ranked #1 in the nation – to scrap the school’s admission standards in favor of a race-based “merit lottery” meant to admit more “diverse” students to the school.
“The student body is notably diverse,” wrote Jackson. “With 79 percent coming from a minority background. But according to state and local education bureaucrats, that last point isn’t good enough — because, as it turns out, the school’s population is made up of ‘the wrong kind’ of minorities: Asian students…By comparison, relatively small numbers of Black and Hispanic applicants meet TJ’s demanding admission standards.”
While Jackson says that he’d like to see more black and Hispanic students attend TJHS, the watering down of admissions standards by “paternalistic white liberals” shows that what they truly believe is that black and Hispanic students are inferior to white and Asian students.
“When I see the effort to water down the admissions standards to TJ — and let’s be clear, that effort is largely led by paternalistic White liberals who are determined to “help” minority victims at any cost — I see it for what it is: a tacit admission that they don’t think Black and Hispanic students have what it takes to compete on merit.”
Jackson is part of a larger group of parents called the Coalition for TJ, of which he is a founding member. This week, the group filed suit alleging discrimination against Asian students in new TJHS admission standards violates the 14th Anendment.
