Compared with previous classes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., there were more Black and Hispanic students, as well as white students — but fewer Asian students.

That is because standardized testing that had once been the key to admission was eliminated. Top students were admitted from a cross-section of schools, and weight was given to poorer students, as well as to students learning the English language.

Now, those policies are at the center of a federal lawsuit filed by an organization called Coalition for TJ, with the aid of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative group that is taking on public high school admissions and has filed similar lawsuits in New York and Montgomery County, Md.

The organization argues that the school’s new admissions process was designed to racially balance the student body at the expense of Asian American students. The group is pushing for the school’s new process to be scrapped, saying that it discriminates along racial and ethnic lines.