最高法院受理马里兰磁校录取案：亚裔家长挑战"中性"抽签制涉歧视
美国最高法院于10月19日（周一）宣布受理"教育公平协会诉蒙哥马利县教育委员会"案，审理公立学校磁校（magnet）招生规则是否歧视亚裔美国学生。案件由太平洋法律基金会（PacificLegalFoundation）代表一批亚裔家长提起，挑战蒙哥马利县四所顶尖初中的磁校录取"抽签制"——该县将学生与同等贫困水平小学的同学比较后随机录取，家长们指控这套以地理和社会经济状况为代理变量的公式，实质上把就读高水平低贫困学校、而亚裔高度集中的孩子排在了后面。
蒙哥马利县公立学校2016年在顾问报告批评磁校种族构成后改写招生标准，改革后亚裔入学率立即下降，家长们于2020年起诉。最高法院本次仅受理一个问题：质疑"表面中性"招生政策构成种族歧视的原告，是否必须先证明目标族裔群体相对于申请总量的"总体性差异影响"，法官才会审理其证据。
基金会资深律师克里斯·基泽表示："宪法保护的是作为个体的学生，而不是作为种族群体成员的学生。学区不能因为政策伤害的亚裔孩子'不够多'就驳回歧视指控。
"这是2023年最高法院推翻大学平权录取后，首个触及K-12招生政策的同类案件，引发全美华人及亚裔社区高度关注。
Supreme Court Takes Up Maryland Magnet School Admissions Case: Asian American Parents Challenge "Neutral" System as Discriminatory
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case over admissions to Montgomery County, Maryland's magnet middle schools, in a challenge brought by Asian American parents.
The court granted the petition on October 19, limited to the question of whether a plaintiff challenging a facially neutral admissions policy as racially discriminatory must first establish that the targeted racial group suffered an aggregate disparate impact relative to its share of the applicant pool. The case was brought by the Association for Education Fairness (AFEF), an organization formed by parents who argue that the admissions rules adopted by Montgomery County Public Schools in 2016 intentionally disadvantage Asian American students: the system compares applicants against students at their own elementary schools, so Asian American students clustered at a handful of high-performing schools face far steeper competition.
The parents sued in 2020. The Fourth Circuit earlier upheld dismissal of the case, holding that the parents had to show the policy had pushed Asian American enrollment below that group's share of the applicant pool — the so-called "aggregate benchmark" approach, which the Second and Third Circuits have rejected.
Chris Kieser, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the association for free, said: "The Constitution protects students as individuals, not as members of a racial group. A school district should not be able to defeat a discrimination claim by showing that its policy did not harm enough Asian American children.
Every family deserves admissions rules that judge their child on their own merit." The Supreme Court's ruling will set a national standard for how intent-based discrimination claims against school admissions policies are judged.
来源：GSM·美国（原文链接）
图片来源：图：美国联邦最高法院大楼。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons / Photo: The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. Source: Wikimedia Commons
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