Prejudice has a long and particularly ugly history in this country. In decades past, colleges like Harvard had policies against admitting women and found ways to keep Jewish people out, regardless of ability. Today, they look for ways to keep Asian students out, again, regardless of ability.
Bill de Blasio has proposed policies that will reduce the numbers of Asian students in New York's high-achieving high schools in favor of allowing entry to students with lower test scores. My cynical side looks at this policy and wonders if discrimination is okay for him so long as it applies to a group that he favorss over another that he doesn't.
There's been no acknowledgement that the new policy strips opportunities from some kids, while elevating others who are less deserving according to a transparent system (test scores). That sounds like the dictionary definition of discrimination to me.
The obvious solution is to create another specialized high school for the students who scored near the current cutoff, not to kick 20% of higher-scoring students to the curb because it makes you feel good. Thus: there would be a new, lower cutoff score because more slots would become available. Shouldn't de Blasio be striving to lift up as many students as possible rather than playing an education zero-sum game?
In de Blasio's own clueless words (emphasis mine):
Anyone who tells you this is somehow going to lower the standard at these schools is buying into a false and damaging narrative. It’s a narrative that traps students in a grossly unfair environment, asks them to live with the consequences, and actually blames them for it. This perpetuates a dangerous and disgusting myth.
So it's okay to be grossly unfair to Asian students who passed the tests? And to blame them for decisions or income their parents made? Will de Blasio start following Harvard's model and assess candidates on personality in 2020?
Again, make a new specialized high school. Given that it's brand new, reserve extra slots for low-income students. Fine. Great -- it's new and you can do that. But don't cheat people laboring under the current system in the name of phony "equity."
And at the same time, look at some of the factors that cause serious problems in the other high schools, like poverty and lack of a safety net. Schools can't fix those problems.
Trading one form of discrimination for another is simply perpetuating the problem. The people who wanted to keep women and Jews out thought they were acting correctly, too.
