Advocacy groups intervene in exam school lawsuit
Will argue to keep new policy as Hub parents challenge new admissions process
A coalition of Black, Asian and Latino advocacy groups will intervene in a lawsuit brought on by Boston parents that challenges a new admissions process for entry into the city’s elite exam schools, a policy the coalition wants to keep in place.
“Surely it is disappointing that we are here, however this is what happens when we start to make progress, there’s pushback, there are headwinds,” said Tanisha Sullivan, president of Boston’s NAACP chapter and lead intervener in the case.
The lawsuit filed Friday by the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence against the school committee and Superintendent Brenda Cassellius argues that a new exam school admissions process that suspends for one year the use of an entry exam and instead weighs student performance, zip code and GPA or MCAS results is unfair and disfavors white and Asian students.
The BPCAE is asking the court to prevent admissions decisions from being made under the new system and to prohibit the district from using a zip code system as a factor in future admissions decisions.
But the intervening group says the new admissions policy, which allocates more exam school seats to disadvantaged communities, is “a small step toward remediating the longstanding inequities in the admissions process that have unfairly and illegally disadvantaged families of color for decades.”
When the reform was approved by the school committee in October, it was hailed by many as a historic move for Boston, as students of color have made up a minority of enrollment in exam schools in comparison to their overall population in the district.
The intervening organizations include the NAACP Boston Branch, the Greater Boston Latino Network, the Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network, the Asian American Resource Workshop and three Boston Public Schools families of color who are directly impacted by the admissions process.
“Every day, we check the mail with excitement to see if we have received an admissions offer. … (My son) said to me that as a Latino, he felt he wouldn’t get a chance,” said one of the parents participating in the case who lives in the Cathedral Housing Development in Boston’s South End.
Bethany Li, director of Greater Boston Legal Services’ Asian Outreach Project said, “The Asian American community wants to make clear that it won’t be a wedge between other people of color and white people in this fight for racial justice.”
On Wednesday, a U.S. District Court Judge said the coalition can join the case and the next hearing is scheduled for March 16 in a process that is expedited as acceptance notifications were set to go out on March 29 but will now be pushed to mid-April.
The Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence did not respond to request for comment.