The Limits of Merit

Susan Estrich on Jul 18, 2026

The New York City Public School system is 62% Black and Hispanic. At its eight most prestigious competitive high schools, 80% of the students are Asian or White. Wait -- what's considered the most selective of the city's schools, Stuyvesant High, 777 students were offered slots. Of those, how many (or should I say how few) went to Blacks? Take a guess. It's 2026, with equality for all. Three. And 21 offers went to Hispanic students, together with a one-third decline from last year's freshman class.

The selections are entirely based on performance on a 4-hour test in English and math, for which these incoming freshmen literally study for years. Proponents of the testing regime argue that it is entirely merit-based; opponents point to the results and argue that there is more to future success than can be measured by a 4-hour test, and that the test itself is racially discriminatory.

I've always been a great fan of tests and merit systems, as I was a kid from a middle-class background with no special connections who was very good at taking tests and writing papers. Let the preppies inhabit their elites; I had better grades. My mother was a secretary, but I got into Harvard. I bartended my way through law school, but I made Law Review president. Merit, or what passed for that, got me the scholarships I desperately needed. They opened doors that otherwise would have been closed to me.

Asians make up 19% of all public-school students and 69% of those offered places at Stuyvesant. I celebrate those Asian families, many with first-generation children who study long hours to take their places at schools, which will open more doors to them. I don't want to take away a system that rewards their incredible accomplishments and drive.

But I do want to spread it around, and that's the problem. Are New York's leaders of tomorrow really going to learn what they need to in classes with -- at most -- three blacks in them? Won't their educations be poorer as a result? And what of the opportunities these schools provide, not only for college, but for future success? Can anyone really be comfortable with the disproportionate denial of those opportunities based on numbers that correlate with race? We need more Blacks and Hispanics moving up the ladder, and so do they.

Mayor Mamdami, a graduate of one of those schools, Bronx Science, who at one point before he ran for Mayor said the test should be abolished, now says the issue is a "struggle" for him. Mamdami's two predecessors both condemned the test -- Bill de Blasio called it a "monumental injustice," and Eric Adams called it "a Jim Crow school system -- it's the state legislature that would have to change it. The alumni groups are reportedly fierce in their opposition and have spent millions on lobbying efforts. They are full of people like me, and who am I to tell them they're wrong?

And yet there's something very wrong with the result -- some things rather -- and if we don't dare talk about them, they will never change.

========

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.