Free Republic

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has fired the latest salvo in America’s assault on meritocracy: a 61-page opinion holding that the suburban Loudoun County school system discriminated against black and Hispanic youngsters because its selective-admission high school, the Academies of Loudon, hadn’t admitted enough of them. Never mind that—as Mr. Herring acknowledged—the school’s test-based admissions process is open to all and fairly managed. Because its results have a “disparate impact,” the school system must scrap it. Nationwide, selective-admission public schools, also known as “exam schools,” are under attack because the demographics of their student populations don’t match those of their...

In the struggle to achieve racial equality are two closely related controversies about “equal treatment” and “merit.” Does equal treatment mean treating individuals without regard to race, as critics of affirmative action assert, or with regard to race, as demanded by advocates of race-based diversity? And what is merit, and how should it be rewarded? Developments in California over the past several months brought both those issues boiling to the surface. On May 5, black and Hispanic Democratic legislators introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, the latest attempt to repeal Proposition 209, which added a provision to the state constitution prohibiting...

Richard A. Carranza, the city schools chancellor, insisted last week that the plan to eliminate the entrance exam that dictates admission into Stuyvesant High School and the city’s other top public high schools was gaining traction. “There’s some real momentum,” Mr. Carranza said at the State Capitol. Two days later, the bill died. The Legislature adjourned, having taken no action on the specialized school exam. The contentious bill divided many of New York’s families along racial lines: Black and Hispanic students have seen their numbers at the prized schools plummet over the last two decades, while some Asian families argued...

The chancellor of New York City schools testified for more than two hours at a City Council hearing Wednesday, staunchly defending the view that the admissions test for eight elite high schools must be abolished. Chancellor Richard Carranza said the 1971 state law that governs admissions was designed to block integration. Now about 10% of students at the sought-after schools are black or Hispanic, despite making up nearly 67% of the city’s enrollment. “Either we believe that black and Latino students are biologically, physiologically, genealogically incapable of being admitted to a specialized school or it is the method and methodology...

Stuyvesant High School, New York City’s most prestigious secondary school, only admitted seven black students for the upcoming fall term. Asian students make up 73 percent of the student body. According to a report from the New York Times, Stuyvesant High School only offered admission to seven blacks students this year for their incoming 900-seat freshman class. This news has sparked debate across the political spectrum, with figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chiming in. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times argued that white students dominate secondary schools like Stuyvesant because they can afford to prepare for its entrance exam. However,...

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to change admissions for eight specialized high schools could lead to students with markedly lower state test scores getting into these competitive schools, according to a review of New York City data. His plan would offer seats to the top 7% of performers in each public middle school. If that method had been in place for this fall, data show the city would have offered spots to more than 300 students who didn’t pass state tests in seventh grade. In addition, offers would have gone to about 1,000 fewer students who excelled on state tests,...

The rise of Asian-Americans and their dominance in academia may be exemplified by the extraordinary performance of Asian-American students in New York City. How A Chinese Solar Giant Was Snared In An Italian Fraud Scandal According to recent media reports, Asian-American students account for almost three-fourths of the enrollment at Stuyvesant High School, one of the city's eight specialized, elite public schools that strictly use test scores for admission. Asians represent less than 14 percent of the city's entire public school student body, meaning they are disproportionately represented at Stuyvesant by a magnitude of about five. (In 1970, Asians accounted...

... When the bell rings and the school’s 3,295 students spill out of classrooms into the maze of hallways, escalators and stairs like ants in a farm, blacks stand out because they are so rare. Rudi was one of 64 black students four years ago when she entered Stuyvesant, long considered New York City’s flagship public school. She is now one of 40. Asians, on the other hand, make up 72.5 percent of Stuyvesant’s student body (they are 13.7 percent of the city’s overall public school population), a staggering increase from 1970, when they were 6 percent of Stuyvesant students,...

This Christmas marks the 350th anniversary of the least-honoured genesis of American freedom, to be celebrated in the New York suburb of Queens. For only the fourth time in its history a fragile piece of paper called the Flushing Remonstrance will go on display. Written in 1657 by the English citizens of the Long Island village of Flushing, it asserted their right to freedom of conscience against the autocracy of Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of their colony of New Netherland. It thus long predated the “self-evident truths” of Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration of Independence. The Flushing Remonstrance protested against Stuyvesant’s...

It's 10 p.m. and you should know where your children are. But if they are New York City teens, they could be up to anything, from partying to protesting to sexually experimenting. For a survival guide to adolescence, forget preachy parenting guides that are as out of touch with kids as the ancient authors who pen them. Instead, try "The Notebook Girls," a real journal written by four teens who documented life at Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School from their freshman to junior years. In graphic, emotional and often blisteringly funny entries, Julia Baskin, Lindsey Newman, Sophie Pollitt-Cohen and Courtney Toombs...

Researchers find it shocking that 11 percent of American girls between 15 and 19 claim to have same-sex encounters. Clearly they’ve never observed the social rituals of the pansexual, bi-queer, metroflexible New York teen. Alair is wearing a tight white tank top cut off above the hem to show her midriff. Her black cargo pants graze the top of her combat boots, and her black leather belt is studded with metal chains that drape down at intervals across her hips. She has long blonde curls that at various times have been dyed green, blue, red, purple, and orange. (“A mistake,”...

Alair is wearing a tight white tank top cut off above the hem to show her midriff. Her black cargo pants graze the top of her combat boots, and her black leather belt is studded with metal chains that drape down at intervals across her hips. She has long blonde curls that at various times have been dyed green, blue, red, purple, and orange. (“A mistake,” she says. “Even if you mean to dye your hair orange, it’s still a mistake.”) Despite the fact that she’s fully clothed, she seems somehow exposed, her baby fat lingering in all the right...