The Supreme Court refused to issue an injunction to stop a Virginia high school from using an admissions policy that some parents say discriminates against Asian Americans, allowing the magnet school to admit students it feels diversifies the student population, the Associated Press reports.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology, a state-chartered magnet school in Alexandria, Virginia, had used admissions criteria that created a student body consisting of 78% Asian-Americans, while Blacks had 1% of slots and Hispanics had 3%.  In the incoming freshman class, the new formula would lower the percentage of students of Asian heritage to 54% while Black student representation would increase to 7% and Hispanic representation to 11%.  White student representation would stay around 20%.

A lower court issued a stay, preventing the Fairfax County school from using the new criteria to admit students for the fall school year.  Fairfax County Schools argued that the criteria should be used, and the Supreme Court agreed that it may be used until the court hears the case.  Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said they would have voted to block the implementation of the new system.

The case plays as a harbinger of other cases that will come to the Supreme Court relating to admissions criteria.  Anti-affirmative action activists have been pushing cases against the nation’s top universities, claiming they were denied admission although a person with lesser qualifications and different skin color was admitted.  The Supreme Court has traditionally allowed universities to set their own admissions criteria, so long as no one had been barred from admission based on previously specified special criteria like race, gender, religion, etc.