Virginia AG Demands Fairfax County Middle School Stop Racial Discrimination Against Students

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (C) announces investigations into Thomas Jefferson High School's delay in informing students of national merit awards and the school's admission policies in Alexandria, Va., on Jan. 4, 2023. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va.—Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a letter Thursday to a Fairfax County middle school demanding the school stop discriminating against potential 8th-grade applicants for its college preparation program.

On March 1, Cooper Middle School sent an email inviting parents of 8^th graders to apply for the public school system’s College Partnership Program (CPP). The invitation addressed black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities, students with limited proficiency in English, economically disadvantaged students, and students who would be the first in their families to attend college in the United States.

“Please cease and desist the illegal conduct of soliciting and selecting applicants to the College Partnership Program based on race, color, and national origin,” Miyares wrote in the letter to school principal Lisa Barrow, saying that the conduct violated the Virginia Human Rights Act.

In addition, he gave Cooper Middle School until March 17 to show evidence that the school “has retracted and corrected” the March 1 email, and that the application process for the CPP is conducted “in a nondiscriminatory and legal manner.” Finally, he said the letter would act as a litigation hold, preventing the school and its officers from deleting records.

“It’s shocking that we continue to find such blatant examples of racial and ethnic discrimination in the Fairfax County Public School System. Every student should be able to apply for the College Partnership Program and have the same opportunities as their peers, regardless of race,” said Miyares in a press statement on Thursday. “I demand that Cooper Middle School, its administrators, and anyone involved in this program stop this illegal discrimination immediately.”

Cooper Middle School in McLean, Va., is pictured on Mar. 9, 2023. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

However, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) said the AG’s office had relied on “wholly inaccurate” media coverage about discrimination against certain racial groups in their applying to the CPP.

“We are disappointed that no one from the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia contacted Fairfax County Public Schools to check on the authenticity of these reports. Instead, false and damaging public accusations against Cooper Middle School have been made,” FCPS said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

“In fact, in School Year 2022-23, 352 Asian students (17.4 percent) and 176 white students (8.7 percent) out of a total of 2,018 students were enrolled in the program, which is designed to encourage historically underrepresented groups to consider a path to college,” the statement read. “Publishing false narratives like this undermines public school efforts to boost U.S. educational achievement.”

FCPS did not answer The Epoch Times’ question about whether the March 1 email was sent to all parents on the Cooper Middle School email distribution list, but reiterated that the program’s enrollment data suggests no discrimination occurs.

Mr. F.G., a father of a Cooper Middle School student of Asian ethnicity, said he was “concerned” that the school seemed to have invited only black and Hispanic students to apply for the CPP—even though he said his 8^th-grade son might not need to use the program. “This is not right. It’s not right,” he told The Epoch Times, in reference to the application solicitation email.

“The email from Cooper Middle School speaks for itself and, in the judgment of the Attorney General, violates the law,” Miyares’ spokeswoman, Victoria LaCivita, told The Epoch Times. “That is why Attorney General Miyares has demanded a correction to the email. If FCPS truly wants to boost educational achievement and not undermine it, it should stop sending emails like the one it did. Discrimination has no place in public education, and Attorney General Miyares will continue to demand that it stops.”

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) is pictured with Harold Pyon, deputy commissioner of Virginia's Department of Labor and Industry, at an Asian-American town hall meeting in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 6, 2023. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Miyares’ letter comes amid a probe into FCPS’s delay in notifying students who received national merit awards, as well as the admission policy of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology—referred to as “TJ” by locals and ranked No. 1 in the nation for the fourth consecutive year in 2022.

The recent scrutiny of FCPS also comes as a number of parents have expressed concern at the school division’s equity policies.

In November, FCPS hired Performance Fact Inc., an Oakland, California-based contractor, to develop an “equity-centered strategic plan” (pdf) emphasizing “the equity imperative: equitable access, equal outcomes.” The contract was for $455,000.

FCPS was mentioned multiple times at Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s town hall meeting with CNN on March 9.

“What was suggested and communicated by senior officials in schools was exactly that: That they had held back notifying students of their national merit commendation because they didn’t want other students to feel bad,” Youngkin said of the FCPS' delay in notifying students of their awards. “The reality is that when a school hires consultants to come in and teach equity for all students—equal outcomes for all students at any cost—we end up with these kinds of circumstances.”

“We have to celebrate excellence. We shouldn’t embrace equity at the expense of excellence,” he said.

FCPS hasn’t responded to Epoch Times’ inquiry on Youngkin’s town hall remarks.