Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

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Welcome to the Quillett podcast. I'm Jonathan Kay.

In recent years, some of the most selective public schools in the United States have become the focus of bitter debate.

As with many bitter American debates, this one is about race, in particular the question of

how many blacks and Hispanics are getting into these schools.

In New York City, diversity proponents have demanded that the best schools change their admissions

criteria, since race-blind testing doesn't seem to generate a student mix that represents the wider diversity of New York schools.

Over the past few months, this debate has also played out at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, which is by some measures the best high school in the whole country.

Except that this diversity battle comes with a twist.

That's because the lottery plan that diversity proponents had come up with to replace race-blind testing would actually increase the share of white students, along with the share of blacks and Hispanics.

That's because the lion's share of blacks and Hispanics.

That's because the lion's share of students at TJ, as it's often called, are Asian.

And while school board officials would never put it in these crude terms, their demand for more diversity is, in effect, a plan for fewer Asians.

Not surprisingly, local Asian parents, as well as many white families and some black families too, are telling the state

government and local school board officials to get their hands off TJ's race-blind formula

...