Some of New York City’s most prestigious public high schools only offered 10 percent of their openings to Black and Latino students, the New York Times reports. 

According to the study, Stuyvesant High School, one of the elite high schools in the city, has only admitted seven Black students in the last year. In total, twenty Latino students, 489 Asian students, and 158 white students were offered spots at Stuyvesant. The remaining spots were given to students whose ethnicities were unknown.

Other schools in the report also revealed that Black and Latino students are being handed the short in of the educational stick. At Staten Island Technical High School, two Black students were accepted, up from zero last year, along with seven Latino students out of 287 offers that were made.

Because of the reputation of the city’s specialized high schools, many students from outside the vicinity of New York also seek entrance at these institutions. These schools are viewed as a step before being accepted into a top college and students gain access to the powerful network of alumni.

New York City’s flagship high schools have not always been so segregated. Historically, the specialized school served more Black and Latino students.

The issue of the city’s flagship schools' lack of Black and Latino students has resulted in fierce political battles over how mayors could provide more access.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio once proposed ending the entrance exam requirement and replacing it with a system that would have raised the number of Black and Latino students accepted to more than 40 percent. The proposal attracted criticism from the Asian community and Asian elected officials who believe the schools are an opportunity for low-income and immigrant children to reach the middle class. Currently, Asian students receive 53 percent of all offers just this year and de Blasio’s proposal would have plummeted those numbers.

Eventually, the legislation was not passed and other efforts such as free test prep, have not helped to move the numbers in a significant way.

Since Mayor Eric Adams’ election, the chasm continues to grow as educational integration has not been one of the many political struggles that his administration has sought to address so far.

The lack of Black students in New York City’s top-ranked, specialized high schools is a microcosm of education segregation throughout the country. According to a 45-page report from the Government Accountability Office, (GAO) between 2020 and 2021, only one-third of the country’s student population attended a school where 75 percent or more of the student body was of a single ethnicity or race despite the country becoming more diverse.

“It is widely recognized that a history of discriminatory practices has contributed to inequities in education, which are intertwined with disparities in wealth, income, and housing,” the report reads. “The legacy of federal housing policies such as ‘red-lining’—a form of illegal disparate treatment—has contributed to racial, ethnic, and economic segregation, which, in turn, has contributed to disparities in education and wealth.