PHILADELPHIA - A federal judge has tossed a challenge to changes made by the School District of Philadelphia in 2021 for admissions into so-called "criteria-based" high schools.
Those schools offer "a rigorous, enriched curriculum" that allows students to focus on specific areas of studies, Judge Chad Kenney wrote on Oct. 11 in granting Philadelphia schools' motion for summary judgment.
Those changes provided for a computerized lottery that featured a preference for students in six Philadelphia zip codes, of which the highest white population is 44.7%. It also increased the percentage of Black and Latino students selected to attend these schools from 33.8% to 52%.
Plaintiffs claiming race-based discrimination lost their challenge to these amendments, as Kenney found them appropriate.
"In short, increasing access for all qualified children to some of the City's best schools - regardless of where they live - is a legitimate state interest, and the changes to the admissions plan are rationally related to that interest," his decision says.
The lawsuit concerned four criteria-based high schools: Academy at Palumbo, George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, Central High School and Julia R. Masterman High School.
Previously, each school employed its own admissions team that reviewed applications. This allegedly led to unqualified students gaining admission at the expense of other qualified students who lived in six zip codes.
When the lottery was instituted, only qualified applicants were entered. Any qualified student of any race that applied to any of the four high schools would automatically be admitted, while the standards for those schools were increased.
The plaintiffs are parents of students who did not receive admission into their preferred school. They pointed at the minority admissions goals outlined in the changes.
Judge Kenney had already declined an injunction and class certification for the plaintiffs, who had pointed at a drop in white accepted students as proof the changes had discriminatory effects.
"(T)here is... no other evidence that the changes to the admissions plan caused 'similarly situated individuals of a different race [to be] treated differently,'" Kenney wrote.
"All qualified students that reside within the six zip codes were treated the same regardless of race: they all were automatically admitted to any criteria-based school that they applied to. All qualified students who reside outside of the six zip codes were also treated equally: they all had an equal opportunity, through the computerized lottery, to receive admission to each criteria-based school where they applied."
No jury could find the zip code preference was implemented to benefit any specific racial group, Kenney said. Philadelphia claims to have not known the demographics of those zip codes.
Those zip codes were selected because they had the lowest percentage of students enrolled at the four high schools from 2017-21.
"The zip code preference ensures that all qualified students from the six underrepresented zip codes who applied to criteria-based schools would automatically receive admission, thereby incentivizing students from those neighborhoods to apply," Kenney wrote.
"And it is not a far logical leap to assume that if more students from those neighborhoods applied and received admission, more students were likely to accept - for perhaps many reasons, but at the very least, for the simple reason that more students from those neighborhoods were admitted in the first place."