State education honchos must end New York’s race-based STEM admissions — once and for all

The New York State Education Department’s decision to temporarily scrap its requirement for race-based admissions for advanced STEM classes — after a group of Asian parents and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater NY filed suit — marks some progress.

But it needs to go further and drop the practice altogether.

Facing a federal lawsuit, SED will, for now, let schools enroll students in their STEM programs based just on economic need, rather than racial preferences.

But it’s still fighting to preserve those preferences in court.

And schools will still be allowed to use them if they choose even in the meantime.

That’s an enormous disappointment.

In this day and age, with much of public backing a level playing field on race (a Pew poll in December found Americans oppose affirmative action in colleges 50%-33%) — and with the unfairness of racial preferences so obvious — it’s hugely disappointing that SED, Commissioner Betty Rosa and the Board of Regents seem so stuck in the past.

“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,” fumes Yiatin Chu, a parent who spearheaded the lawsuit.

She’s right. There’s no good, moral reason why, say, a wealthy black or Hispanic student should get preference over a poor, struggling Asian or white kid with similar skills.

In 1985, the state legislature created the Science and Technology Entry Program to boost interest in STEM and health care among low-income and underrepresented minority high-school students.

C-STEP is aimed at college students from those groups.

Yet from its inception, the two programs openly discriminated against Asian and white students.

The Supreme Court’s historic affirmative action ruling in 2023 couldn’t be clearer: College admissions must be race-neutral.

Federal education law explicitly outlaws discrimination on the basis of race.

And, as Chief Justice John Roberts thundered in the majority opinion, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” Hear, hear.

So when will New York state officials finally treat all students equally — and scrap race-based admission to its STEM programs, once and for all?