The purge of Asian American students at Thomas Jefferson High School has begun

Asra Nomani & Erin Wilcox:

It was clear that the new standards were aimed at a particular result: dramatically reducing the number of qualified Asian American students admitted to TJ. In response, a multicultural coalition of concerned parents and families came together to combat the new racist standards. These brave parents held protests in front of the school, carrying signs written in Hindi, Bengali and Chinese. We warned that the slippery new standards were not only designed to actively discriminate against Asian American students, but would also end up watering down the school’s long-standing commitment to achievement through hard work and merit.

One coalition member, Himanshu Verma, an immigrant from India, TJ dad and founder of a data analytics firm, crunched the demographic data and projected the revised standards would lead to a drastic decrease in Asian American students admitted to TJ. He was correct. School district officials announced that, as a result of their new admissions system, they slashed the percentage of Asian students admitted to TJ to 54 percent this year from 73 percent last year. The percentage of Blacks and Hispanics increased — as it did for White students.