Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School PTO, Inc. v. De Blasio

Background

The plaintiffs were Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School PTO, Inc., Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, Asian American Coalition for Education, Phillip Yan Hing Wong, Yi Fang Chen, and Chi Wang. They sued Bill de Blasio, in his official capacity as Mayor of New York, and Richard A. Carranza, in his official capacity as Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.

The plaintiffs challenged changes to the Discovery Program for New York City’s eight specialized public high schools. Under the state law governing those schools, students generally had to take the Specialized High School Admissions Test, and admission was based on test scores and school preferences. Discovery was the only alternative admission method. Before the changes, eligibility depended on specified measures of disadvantage, including family income, public assistance, foster care, temporary housing, or English-language-learner status.

In 2018, Chancellor Carranza accepted recommendations to expand Discovery to as much as 20% of seats over two years and changed the definition of “disadvantaged.” The revised rules added a requirement that a student attending a Department of Education school attend a middle school with an Economic Need Index of at least 0.6. The index measured the economic hardship of the school’s student body. The plaintiffs alleged that these facially race-neutral changes violated the Equal Protection Clause because they were intended to discriminate against Asian American students and had that effect.

Legal standard

The court considered the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence shows no genuine dispute about a fact that could affect the result and a reasonable jury could not find for the opposing party.

For a facially race-neutral policy to violate equal protection when it is not administered in a racially discriminatory way, the plaintiff generally must show both a discriminatory effect and a discriminatory purpose. Discriminatory effect means that the policy disproportionately harms a racial group in the aggregate. Discriminatory purpose means that racial discrimination motivated the policy.

Court’s reasoning

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that they could prove discriminatory effect merely by showing that similarly situated students were treated differently based on the middle school they attended. The court held that the governing precedent required evidence that the policy disproportionately harmed Asian American students as a group.

The court also found that the revised rules did not treat students differently because of race. Students attending schools with an Economic Need Index of at least 0.6 had the same eligibility rules regardless of race, and students attending schools below that threshold were equally excluded from Discovery regardless of race. The court viewed the index as a measure of economic disadvantage rather than racial composition. It also found that the reforms did not reserve a specified percentage of seats for any racial or ethnic group.

The court examined several ways of measuring the reforms’ effects. In 2019, Asian American students made up 30.7% of the applicants and received 52.5% of the offers. In 2020, they made up 31.4% of the applicants and received 54.8% of the offers. Asian American students also had the highest offer rates among the major racial and ethnic groups: 33.2% in 2019 and 31.9% in 2020. Even under the plaintiffs’ preferred comparison with the 2018 admissions system, the court found that Asian American students’ share of offers and offer rate increased after the reforms.

The court considered evidence concerning Stuyvesant and Bronx Science but found that the differences were minor. At Stuyvesant, Asian American students received 66.9% of the 2020 Discovery invitations, compared with a projected 67.6% under the 2018 criteria, a difference of nine students. At Bronx Science, the figures were 55.8% and 57.2%, a difference of 13 students. The court also concluded that data from two of the eight schools could not establish a disparate effect across the program as a whole.

Because the court found no discriminatory effect, it did not decide whether the defendants had acted with discriminatory intent. It also rejected the argument that the case should remain open so later admissions cycles could reveal a discriminatory effect, stating that equal-protection analysis was not a wait-and-see exercise.

Disposition

Judge Edgardo Ramos granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion and close the case.