How a New York mom is fighting racial discrimination in the state’s Flagship Science and Technology Education Program
Since 1985, New York’s Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) has offered grade 7-12 students an academic boost in preparing for college studies and future careers. Some 11,000 students enroll in the specialized statewide program each year to receive special intensive preparation in sciences, mathematics, technology, health care and related fields.
It’s a worthy program that has helped a lot of ambitious kids. But there’s one problem: STEP’s eligibility and admissions criteria blatantly discriminate against white and Asian American applicants in favor of children from other racial backgrounds. Now, one New York City mom is challenging the state in federal court to end this unconstitutional discrimination.
STEP’s stated purpose is to “increase the number of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students prepared to enter college, and improve their participation rate in mathematics, science, technology, health-related fields and the licensed professions.” The tutoring, college counseling, test preparation, research opportunities and other benefits that participants receive in the program can open doors for later academic achievement and career success.
That is unless they have the “wrong” skin color. The disturbing reality is that STEP’s eligibility and admissions criteria openly discriminate by imposing more stringent income eligibility standards on qualified white and Asian-American students.
Applicants from favored racial categories (black, Hispanic, Native American or Alaskan Native) are automatically eligible for admission based strictly on their race or ethnic background. But disfavored candidates — that is, children from white or Asian-American backgrounds — are subject to additional eligibility qualifications to determine if they are “economically disadvantaged.” Meeting this vaguely defined standard requires the applicants to submit a copy of their family’s federal tax return.
This is where the admissions criteria are particularly twisted: an African-American candidate from a college-educated, upper-middle-class family is automatically eligible for the program, while a less privileged white or Asian-American student is subjected to more stringent criteria.
It’s yet another example of the educational bureaucracy’s single-minded obsession with race at all costs. Unfortunately, New York is not unique in its attempt to engineer school admission schemes that discriminate on the basis of race.
For example, consider the case of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) in Fairfax County, Virginia — the top-ranked high school in the nation. County education officials revised TJ’s admissions criteria to favor students from selected racial backgrounds, leading to a federal court challenge from a group of Asian-American parents who argued the new standards discriminate against their children. Similarly, New York City landed in court after public school officials sought to water down standards at the city’s highly regarded specialized high schools to reduce Asian-American student enrollment. The ideological fixation on promoting certain racial groups at the expense of others has distorted education policy in districts nationwide.
The courts have made it clear these discriminatory eligibility schemes are unconstitutional. Just last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) case that basing college admissions on race rather than merit and achievement violates basic constitutional guarantees of justice and equal protection. Subjecting applicants to different eligibility criteria based on skin color violates the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which requires that all Americans — even high school students — are guaranteed equal protection of the laws.
Yiatin Chu, an Asian-American mother in Queens, thought STEP might be a good fit for her middle-school daughter, who has a strong interest in STEM learning. However, a closer examination of the program’s eligibility criteria revealed that because of her race, her daughter would face additional admission requirements — a potential barrier to entry that Chu immediately recognized as unfair.
Chu filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the STEP admissions requirements. Represented by Pacific Legal Foundation, Chu and her co-plaintiffs argue the program’s shifting eligibility rules discriminate on the basis of race and thus violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection. Chu simply wants her daughter, and other students like her, to be judged not as members of a racial group, but based on their individual talents, efforts and achievements.
In a misguided attempt to achieve social justice, New York’s educational bureaucracy has instituted severe injustice against the children and families they should serve. To send a clear signal about the importance of merit and academic excellence, education leaders should stop trying to engineer equal outcomes based on racial groupings and instead focus on encouraging hard work and individual achievement.
