NYC students sue to stop gifted programs citing racial ‘caste system’
NEW YORK POST – A group of Big Apple high schoolers is suing the city and the state to eliminate Gifted & Talented programs and admissions screening — arguing they perpetuate systemic racism and reinforce a “caste system,” new court papers show.
“Nearly every facet of the New York City public education system operates not only to prop up, but also to affirmatively reproduce, the artificial racial hierarchies that have subordinated people of color for centuries in the United States,” alleges the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed Tuesday by 13 students and a youth activist group.
The students, identified only by their initials, and IntegrateNYC — “a youth-led organization that stands for equity and justice in our schools” — argue in the suit that Gifted & Talented programs “exclude many students of color, who are instead condemned to neglected schools that deliver inferior and unacceptable outcomes.”
They also charge that city schools “teach a Eurocentric curriculum that centers white experience,” don’t have enough racially diverse staff and aren’t providing resources to help students and staff “identify and dismantle racism.”