This piece explains a recent legal win defending merit-based admissions in New York City against a progressive “anti-racist” lawsuit, traces how the case unfolded, and highlights reactions from Defending Education and its president Nicole Neily. It covers the original 2021 filing, the court’s October 24 decision, and the organization’s reasons for intervening to protect students and meritocracy. The article keeps key quotes intact and reports the political stakes for families and specialized schools in the city.
In 2021, a group of activists led by Attorney Benjamin Crump filed suit against New York City’s selective schools, accusing them of segregation for having merit-based admissions standards. That complaint sought sweeping changes, arguing the city had “replicated and worsened racial inequality” by sorting students into different academic tracks. Defending Education, then known as Parents Defending Education, stepped in because it feared city and state officials would not robustly defend merit-based policies.
A major new lawsuit filed Tuesday could force fundamental changes to how New York City’s public school students are admitted into selective schools, and marked the latest front in a growing political, activist and now legal movement to confront inequality in the nation’s largest school system.
Even if the suit, brought by civil rights attorneys and student plaintiffs in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, does not upend the city’s admissions system, it will likely prompt scrutiny of New York’s school system, considered among the most racially and socioeconomically segregated in the country.
The suit argues that the city’s school system has replicated and worsened racial inequality by sorting children into different academic tracks as early as kindergarten, and has therefore denied many of its roughly one million students of their right to a sound, basic education. Defendants include Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the incoming schools chancellor, Meisha Porter.
Defending Education moved to intervene out of concern that a “sue and settle” outcome would let activist demands rewrite admissions, hiring, funding, and curriculum across the schools. That organization argued families who opposed race-based remedies had to be heard in court. Their intervention framed the fight as protecting children from being reduced to racial categories instead of being judged on achievement.
Defending Education was granted intervention in the case on behalf of 6 members with children in the system, providing a perspective to this case that the court would not otherwise have heard – that of families with children in the system who opposed the Plaintiffs’ proposed race-based relief.
Children should be judged based on their individual merit, not defined as members of a racial group or blamed for the collective sins of others. The best way to achieve equality is to treat children equally, regardless of skin color, and to fix the parts of the City’s schools that are broken – not by focusing on race and breaking the parts of the City’s schools that are working.
On October 24, the New York Court of Appeals sided with the defendants and with Defending Education’s position, ruling judges should not be in the business of creating education policy. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to substitute judicial oversight for political and administrative reform. That decision preserved the authority of merit-based admissions in New York’s specialized schools.
Nicole Neily explained why her group intervened, saying the plaintiffs sought to “inject race into every single element of the education system.” She added, “The mask slipped.” Those two lines cut to the organization’s central claim: activists wanted courts to impose policies the political process had not produced.
Neily also warned about a pattern where city and state officials might “use race in other systems” and therefore would not mount the kind of defense needed to protect merit-based rules. She described an earlier judicial back-and-forth where one judge dismissed the suit, while an appellate judge allowed relief despite acknowledging courts lacked authority because she “didn’t like the outcome” of merit admissions. “Let’s talk about activist judges,” Neily said. “The Left uses the courts to achieve policy ends that they cannot get through the proper process.”
Neily called the Court of Appeals decision “an equal protection victory” and stressed, “we cannot put race into education.” She noted socioeconomic realities within the city’s communities, observing that more Asian families in New York are at or below the poverty line than Hispanic families, and argued many families take active steps to give their children a strong education. “We have to acknowledge there’s a certain measure of agency and personal responsibility for getting prepared for and getting into these schools,” Neily said.
She framed the ruling as protecting a national ideal, saying, “This victory is a win not only for New York City’s specialized schools program – the crown jewel of the American public education system – but also for meritocracy writ large. As Chief Justice Roberts famously said, ‘the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,’ and we are gratified that the court recognized the folly of this activist campaign.” Those words underline the broader Republican case for equal treatment and opportunity over race-based fixes.
Neily also flagged future fights. When asked about Zohran Mamdani and his plans to eliminate gifted and talented programs, she said Defending Education is prepared to sue. “Defending Education is keeping a close eye on New York, and we are willing and prepared to sue them, too.” For advocates of merit, the courtroom won this round, but the political pressure on specialized programs remains a live issue.
