Three Chinese parents in Brooklyn are expected to file a federal lawsuit today challenging a popular city-run tutoring program on the grounds it discriminates against Asians, The Post has learned.
The Specialized High School Institute preps gifted but “underrepresented” minorities to ace the competitive exam to get into top city high schools like Stuyvesant or Brooklyn Tech.
But the parents say it is unfair – and illegal – for the Department of Education to limit eligibility to blacks and Latinos.
“The program only selects certain kinds of minorities and unfortunately my daughter didn’t fall into that category,” said Peggy Foo-Ching, 47, a mom from Bensonhurst who said her 12-year-old daughter’s application last year was ignored.
The Specialized High School Institute was created to expand the population of black and Latino students at the elite high schools, but the Department of Education has always insisted anyone who qualifies for a free lunch could apply.
Foo-Ching’s eldest daughter qualified for the institute in 2003 and is now a student at Brooklyn Tech, but the mother believes guidelines were changed barring her younger daughter from participating last March.
A Department of Education internal memo obtained by lawyers trying the case indicated that eligibility criteria excludes whites and Asians.
“What this memo reveals is blatant and categorical discrimination by race. If you are white or Asian, you’re not supposed to get an application,” said Christopher Hajec, an attorney with the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative advocacy group.
“It’s not the business of the government of New York City to be counting up the Asians or whites in, say, Stuyvesant High School and concluding there are too many of them.”
Andrew Jacob, a Department of Education spokesman, said the racial criteria has been under review since summer, when a US Supreme Court ruling said ethnicity could not be a factor in deciding which public schools students attend.
He could not comment on the suit, but said no policy will be changed before March, when the next group of sixth-graders will be invited to apply to the program.
The father who initiated the suit, Stanley Ng, said he understood how controversial his challenge may be viewed.
“It’s not something that I take lightly,” he said. “There are many Asian and white kids in this district who can’t pay for tutoring. What is their recourse?”
cbennett@nypost.com