Challengers of Affirmative Action Have a New Target: New York City’s Elite High Schools


This week, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative, libertarian-leaning law firm that has a history of challenging affirmative action policies, filed the first lawsuit against his admissions reform proposal, which he announced this summer.


But the suit does not take on the part of Mr. de Blasio’s proposal that has provoked the most controversy: a plan that would entirely eliminate the exam that is currently the sole means of admission into the city’s elite specialized high schools. The mayor wants to replace the test with a system that guarantees seats to top performers at each of the city’s middle schools, which would guarantee that the schools accept many more black and Hispanic students.


Instead, Pacific Legal is taking aim at the first, and more modest, phase of Mr. de Blasio’s proposal: the expansion of a program known as Discovery.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/nyregion/affirmative-action-lawsuit-nyc-high-schools.html