Pushkin

From Pushkin Industries, this is Deep Background, the show where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

I'm Noah Feldman.

Well, it's happening again. We are going back to school. And this

week's episode is all about education. At Stuyvesant High School this year, one of the most

competitive exam schools in all of New York City and indeed in the country, 895 slots were offered

to freshmen. And only seven of those slots were offered to African-American

students. At Bronx High School of Science, out of 803 accepted students, only 12 were African-American.

These outcomes were treated as a crisis throughout New York City. They cast light on a deep

question about the nature

and need for affirmative action. Mayor Bill de Blasio, on the side running for president,

weighed in earlier this summer with an op-ed, arguing that the city's exam schools should essentially

be abolished in the form of which they exist. They should be changed, he said, to schools that

admit the top percentage of students

from all of the middle schools around the city instead of relying on an exam.

A fundamental shift in a mechanism of choice that has existed for decades is inherently fascinating,

and it raises the fascinating question about whether a debate around testing and affirmative action

should be the debate that we're having right now.

I was lucky enough to discuss it with a colleague and friend of mine, Professor Randy Kennedy

of Harvard Law School.

Randy is the author of, among many other books, a terrific book called For Discrimination,

Race, Affirmative Action and the

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