The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that a New York City initiative to increase racial diversity in its elite specialized high schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The ruling specifically addressed the city’s revised Discovery Program, which was intended to boost the number of Black and Latino students in prestigious schools like Stuyvesant High School and Bronx Science, which historically have had low minority representation. The decision could reshape how race-conscious admissions policies are designed and implemented across the city’s competitive public schools.
Background of the Case
The Discovery Program, expanded under former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018, allowed students from disadvantaged backgrounds who missed the cutoff score on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) to gain admission to these selective schools.
The expansion added a requirement that eligible students must attend schools with an Economic Need Index (ENI) of 0.6 or higher, a metric used to identify high-poverty schools. The program was intended to address stark racial disparities in admissions; in 2018, only 9% of admissions offers went to Black and Latino students, even though they represented 68% of the city’s high school population.
Critics, including the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York (CACAGNY), argued that the program’s changes were a thinly veiled attempt to use socioeconomic factors as a proxy for race, in violation of constitutional protections. They filed a lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education (DOE), claiming that the ENI requirement effectively acted as racial balancing, disproportionately affecting Asian-American students who make up the majority of those admitted to specialized high schools through the SHSAT.
Legal Proceedings
The lawsuit, Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York v. Adams, was originally heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. There, Judge Edgardo Ramos upheld the Discovery Program, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the program intentionally discriminated against Asian-American students, who continued to receive more offers than any other racial group even after the program’s expansion. Ramos ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims of “disparate impact” did not rise to the level of an Equal Protection violation.
The plaintiffs, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), appealed the decision to the Second Circuit. On September 26, 2024, Judge Joseph Bianco, writing for a three-judge panel, reversed the lower court’s ruling. Bianco stated that the program’s intent to achieve racial balancing, even through facially neutral criteria like the ENI, rendered it unconstitutional. He noted that constitutional protections under the Equal Protection Clause apply to individuals, not groups, and that the city’s attempt to indirectly increase minority representation violated those rights.
“The admissions process must be based on merit and not on race,” Bianco wrote. He emphasized that the use of economic proxies like the ENI, when motivated by racial balancing, amounted to intentional discrimination.
The ruling allows the plaintiffs to conduct discovery into the DOE’s internal communications and policies to investigate whether racial considerations played a role in the program’s design.
Broader Implications
This case is part of a broader national debate over the use of race and socioeconomic status in admissions processes. Specialized high schools in New York, such as Stuyvesant High School and Bronx Science, have long been criticized for failing to reflect the racial diversity of the city’s public school population.
In response to these disparities, city officials, including former Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, expanded the Discovery Program to increase minority representation without directly altering the SHSAT, which is mandated by New York State’s Hecht-Calandra Act.
However, opponents of the program argued that it unfairly targeted Asian-American students, who disproportionately score high on the SHSAT and have been overrepresented in the city’s specialized schools. The plaintiffs contended that the changes to the Discovery Program were a “backdoor” method of introducing racial preferences into the admissions process.
In a statement following the ruling, Glenn Roper, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, said, “The Second Circuit’s decision is a victory for equal treatment under the law. No student should be denied admission to a school because of their race or background. This ruling ensures that students will be judged on their merit, not on government attempts to racially balance admissions outcomes.”
The Next Steps
With the case returning to the lower courts for further proceedings, the future of the Discovery Program is uncertain. The DOE has not yet announced whether it plans to appeal the ruling or seek a settlement. Legal experts believe the case could have wider implications for how race-conscious policies are implemented in public schools across the country. If the plaintiffs can prove discriminatory intent behind the program’s design, the case could set a legal precedent that limits the use of race or socioeconomic status in public school admissions nationwide.
As the case continues to develop, it will likely add to the growing debate over the balance between diversity and meritocracy in education, with broader implications for affirmative action policies across the country.
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Sebastian Duda.
For transparency, this content was partly developed with AI assistance and carefully curated by an experienced editor to be informative and ensure accuracy.
