On October 24, 2025, Defending Education (DE) won IntegrateNYC v. State of New York et al., ending a four-year journey through New York’s state courts. The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled that judges should not make education policy and that the plaintiffs’ claims were invalid.
In 2021, DE joined the case alongside the city and state of New York to defend the city’s specialized school programs from activists who wanted to use the courts to bring a racialized lens into all parts of the city’s education system. That remedy would clearly violate both the state and federal Equal Protection Clauses. The plaintiffs claimed the city’s schools were discriminatory because, in their view, not enough students from their preferred races were admitted to selective programs. As the New York Times put it, the lawsuit sought “to establish the right to an antiracist education.”
The court allowed DE to join the case on behalf of six members with children in the system. That gave the court a perspective it would not otherwise have heard: families with children in the schools who opposed the plaintiffs’ race-based demands.
Children should be judged on their individual merit, not treated as members of a racial group or blamed for the wrongs of others. The best way to achieve equality is to treat children equally, regardless of skin color, and to fix the parts of the city’s schools that are broken, not to focus on race and break the parts that are working.
Defending Education’s Founder and President, Nicole Neily, praised the long-awaited victory:
“This victory is a win not only for New York City’s specialized schools program – the crown jewel of the American public education system – but also for meritocracy writ large. As Chief Justice Roberts famously said, ‘the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,’ and we are gratified that the court recognized the folly of this activist campaign.”
Defending Education’s Vice President, Sarah Parshall Perry, added:
“The New York appellate court reached the right conclusion in determining that questions about the quality or sufficiency of education are not those for the judiciary to resolve. Quizzically, the challengers to New York’s gifted and talented program had demanded consideration of race in order to prevent race discrimination. That argument isn’t just illogical, it’s unconstitutional. We’re incredibly gratified by today’s result and looking forward to continuing our work securing color blind meritocracy in American schools across the country.”
Read the final ruling below:
