Opinion ID: 6328916
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Irreparable harm absent a stay

Text: The Board has also shown that it will suffer irreparable harm without a stay. Preventing elected representatives from carrying out “a duly enacted” policy always “constitutes irreparable harm.” Maryland v. King, 567 U.S. 1301, 1303 (2012) (Roberts, C.J., in chambers). Moreover, there are currently 2,540 students awaiting their TJ admissions decisions, which are supposed to be released “no later than April” 2022. A- 246; A-283. The Board persuasively argues that there is no way for it simply to revert to the previous admissions policy. None of the current applicants was required to take the formerly mandated standardized tests, two-thirds of which are no longer commercially available. CA4 ECF 8-1 at 18; A-246. The Coalition insists that the Board should have approached competing vendors in anticipation of identifying replacement tests at some point last year or whipped up a fully formed backup plan even as it was defending its chosen policy in litigation, see CA4 ECF 17 at 20, 23, but that strikes me as completely unrealistic: It took the Board three months to adopt the challenged policy in the first place, A228–32, and the district court thought even that was “rushed,” A-232. 3 3 The Coalition also argues the Board should have been on notice of the need for a backup policy because the district court suggested in September 2021 that it could “try this case in January and get a decision,” which would be “plenty of time to get corrected (Continued) 12 I also am persuaded that requiring the Board to design a new admissions policy and then solicit and review applications under a new process, all on a highly compressed timetable and with little opportunity for community input or outreach, would irreparably damage its credibility and reputation in the community and irreparably harm TJ’s ability to compete for students, many of whom apply to other selective schools with late spring enrollment deadlines. See CA4 ECF 8-1 at 20. It is no mere “administrative inconvenience” the district court’s order mandates, CA4 ECF 17 at 23, but a gigantic undertaking. Such a significant outlay of public resources goes far beyond requiring private citizens to initiate routine administrative processes, see, e.g., Di Biase v. SPX Corp., 872 F.3d 224, 235 (4th Cir. 2017), and constitutes a “genuinely extraordinary situation” justifying interim equitable relief, Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 92 n.68 (1974). 4