In a lawsuit, parents allege the taxpayer-funded program discriminates against Asian, white students
A lawsuit filed by Asian parents alleging racial discrimination in a New York science program has prompted the state to change its policy, according to the New York Post.
In a memo sent last week, obtained by The Post, a New York State Education Department official said the Science and Technology Entry Program will no longer consider students’ “historically underrepresented minority status, race, or ethnicity” as a determining factor for admission.
“Recruitment, selection, and enrollment of new students may proceed using economic-based eligibility criteria only,” department official Anael Alston wrote. “Collection or use of race, ethnicity, or minority status data is not required for eligibility.”
The change is effective immediately until further notice, according to the memo.
The STEP program, which is taxpayer funded, offers advanced science and technology classes to middle and high school students at colleges and medical schools across the state.
A mission of the program is to “increase the number of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students prepared to enter college and improve their participation rate” in math, science, technology, and health fields, according to its website.
Alston attributed the change to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by Asian parents who alleged the program discriminates against their children and white students.
He said the department decided to issue the memo “to provide clarity and support to the field during this period of legal uncertainty.”
However, he also wrote that the department “remains committed” to its mission to “increase access and opportunity for historically underrepresented students in the scientific, technical, and health-related professions.”
Yiatin Chu, one of the parents who sued the state, told The Post that the memo is “progress”:
Chu said her then-seventh-grade daughter was “able and ready” to apply for admission to the summer 2024 STEP program at New York University but couldn’t “because her race makes her ineligible.
“It was unfair and racist for my daughter to be subjected to a low-income requirement just because she is Asian when her black and Hispanic classmates weren’t,” Chu said Sunday. “I’m glad that my lawsuit instigated revisiting these decades long, race-based standards.”
But William Jacobson, an attorney, law professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project, told The Post that the memo is not good enough.
“Word games are not acceptable,” he said. “The state must do away with the racially discriminatory eligibility requirements completely and permanently, or we will ask the court to order it.”
In 2023, Jacobson’s organization also filed a civil rights complaint against a related program at the University of Buffalo, The College Fix reported at the time.
The complaint alleged the university program forced white and Asian high school students to prove they were “economically disadvantaged” to be considered on equal admissions footings with other races.
MORE: Med school programs give preferential admission to non-whites: complaint
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Students raise their hands in a classroom; Michael Jung/Shutterstock