A class action lawsuit has been filed against the state's education department alleging that a program created to increase the number of black and Hispanic students in the city's elite specialized high schools violates the Constitution by excluding whites and Asians. The lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on behalf of three Chinese-American parents whose children were denied admission to the Specialized High School Institute, which prepares students for the test determining admission to schools.
The lawsuit seeks to represent children who were denied admission to the City's Specialized High School Institute, a fifteen-month course designed to prepare students to take the admissions exam for such elite New York schools as Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School, Brooklyn Technical High School, and the Bronx High School of Science.