Fairfax County school officials discontinued the district’s affirmative action policies for Thomas Jefferson High School in 1998, on their lawyer’s advice. The change had a noticeable effect on the racial composition of the next freshman class, the class of 2002, and on subsequent groups of freshmen. Although the number of African-American and Hispanic applicants has not trended downward since then, the numbers accepted to Thomas Jefferson have fallen from 49 accepted in the class of 2001 to nine in the class of 2005.
SOURCE: Thomas Jefferson High School
