ASSEMBLY VOTES HIGH SCHOOL CURB

This is one of the original New York Times articles reporting on the passage of the Hecht-Calandra law.

New York City Democrats split into emotionally charged camps to day as the Assembly passed a bill designed to limit the Board of Education’s power to alter the city’s four specialized high schools.


The measure passed, 107 to 35, and was sent to the Senate after minority‐group members led the opposition and accused white colleagues of seeking an exclusionary racial quota at the schools.


The schools, all highly regarded nationally, are the Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School, Stuyvesant High School and La Guardia High School of Music and the Arts.


Shouted accusations of hypo critical liberalism, racial prejudice and unfair intrusion by upstaters in city affairs echoed on the Democratic side during a three‐hour debate as members repeatedly jumped to their feet and interrupted one an other.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/20/archives/assembly-votes-high-school-curb-limits-city-boards-power-to-ease.html