Bill De Blasio wants to increase ethnic diversity at public education in New York City, and I can hardly tell you what a bad idea that is.
But as the dominatrix said during childbirth; let me share the pain. Mr. De Blasio is upset that the student body at eight elite high schools is majority Asian, while the rest of the student body is mostly white. To right the perceived injustice, De Blasio plans to do away with the admission test to the schools, relying instead on a convoluted plan to increase the number of Black and Spanish students at the schools.
The unavoidable result, of course, would be fewer Asian and white students at the same. That’s the veiled truth behind the policy, hiding behind sweet phrases such as “making the schools look like New York City”. The whole purpose of those schools is not to look like New York City.
And it wouldn’t work anyway—the change in admission policies would destroy the schools as they are. You change the nature of the student body, you change the nature of the school. In the proposed hypothetical case, the black and Latino students would fail at a higher ratio than the Asian students, and it would be plain for all to see. Then we would have Mr. De Blasio of his successor asking why were the evil teachers discriminating against “students of color”. The schools cannot exist as they are without an admission criteria that separates those who are willing and ready from those who are not.
The policy would certainly stoke ethnic division, as similar policies have done all over the world whenever they are tried. For the love of God, the civil war in Sri Lanka started in large part over “affirmative action” policies against the country’s Tamil minority.
Like so many ideas coming out of De Blasio’s putrid soul, destroying New York’s elite high schools would be simultaneously vicious, counterproductive and appalling. The only clear beneficiary would be Mr. De Blasio himself, as he burnishes his left-wing credentials in preparation to a run for higher office.
