Gifted Programs Shut Out Minorities

False Assumption: Gifted programs shut out high-performing Black and Latino children from low-income families due to systemic flaws that districts can fix.

Summaries Written by FARAgent (AI) on February 10, 2026 · Pending Verification

For years, the standard story in education was that gifted programs were full of hidden gatekeepers. Black and Latino children, especially from low-income families, were said to be "overlooked," "underidentified," or screened out by teacher referrals, parent advocacy, cultural bias in tests, and admissions rules that favored savvy white and Asian families. That view had real evidence behind it. National enrollment gaps were large, selective programs often drew from affluent neighborhoods, and districts could point to schools with almost no gifted students despite plenty of children who seemed capable. A reasonable reformer could conclude that the problem was not ability but identification, and that universal screening, local norms, and less reliance on parent pressure would uncover a large pool of missed talent.

That assumption gained force in the 2010s and early 2020s, as civil rights complaints, media coverage, and academic papers treated disparities as proof of systemic exclusion. Studies such as Card and Giuliano's on universal screening were widely cited because they did find more low-income, Black, and Hispanic students entering gifted tracks when districts tested everyone. But the larger claim, that the main reason for racial gaps was a fixable screening failure, ran into trouble. The newly identified students were often concentrated near cutoff lines, many districts still saw large disparities after reforms, and broader differences in measured academic performance and cognitive test results did not disappear. A substantial body of experts now rejects the idea that gifted underrepresentation can be explained chiefly by district procedures.

The debate now sits in an awkward place. Many educators and journalists still speak as if better screening will solve the problem, and in some districts it plainly does find students who were missed. But growing evidence suggests that procedural bias is only part of the story, and not always the largest part. That leaves policymakers with a less comfortable fact pattern than the old slogan allowed: some gifted programs were exclusionary, some were not, and racial gaps do not automatically tell you which is which.

Status: A significant portion of experts think this assumption was false

People Involved

Steven Pinker, the cognitive psychologist and author, treated racial differences in average IQ as an intellectually minor topic whose ignorance was largely beneficial to public discourse. He positioned himself as a good-faith participant who believed such patterns were real but overstated in importance, urging experts to focus elsewhere while the assumption that gifted programs shut out high-performing Black and Latino children from low-income families gained momentum. His stance lent intellectual cover to those who framed disparities as fixable systemic flaws rather than reflections of group differences in cognitive distributions. The result was continued policy emphasis on equity interventions that ignored accumulated test data. ^[1]
Troy Closson, a New York Times reporter, promoted the view that gifted programs shut out high-performing Black and Latino children from low-income families. He framed the disparities as a solvable advanced-education problem rooted in district practices that could be corrected through better screening and policy tweaks. His articles amplified the assumption in national media, shaping how policymakers and readers understood the underrepresentation. This coverage helped push districts toward universal screening and eventual program phase-outs. ^[1]
David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, and Laura Giuliano, an economist at the University of Miami, designed research that analyzed a large Florida district's data and concluded traditional teacher referrals systematically underidentified qualified poor and minority students for gifted programs. They presented universal screening as evidence that referral biases excluded high-ability disadvantaged children who scored comparably on IQ tests once given the chance. Their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences became a key citation for those arguing the system could be fixed. The findings seemed persuasive because they showed concrete gains from a simple policy change. ^[2]
Isabelle Pelle, a student in the Liberal Studies Program at California State University, Chico, authored a capstone paper applying Critical Race Theory to argue that gifted programs underrepresent qualified marginalized students due to systemic barriers. She framed identification methods as reflecting the norms of powerful groups and called for multiple measures of potential beyond IQ tests. Her analysis treated giftedness as a social construct that replicated societal hierarchies. The paper contributed to academic discourse that viewed disparities as evidence of racism rather than ability distributions. ^[3]
Ashley S. Flynn, a researcher in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, analyzed Civil Rights Data Collection figures to argue that Black underrepresentation in gifted programs persists and even worsens due to ongoing inequities. She portrayed White middle-class parents as beneficiaries who protect gifted programs as a White space. Her longitudinal examination reinforced the assumption that districts could remedy the gaps through targeted reforms. The work added to a growing body of scholarship that treated the patterns as fixable policy failures. ^[4]
Katherine Cumings Mansfield, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at Virginia Commonwealth University and former gifted program administrator, published a peer-reviewed article claiming gifted education has a racist genealogy and functions as whiteness as property that maintains a caste system. She argued that standardized tests like the Stanford-Binet are culturally biased and mistake exposure for innate potential. Her analysis urged educational leaders to question the entire enterprise through conversations on race. The article shaped multicultural education discourse by framing programs as tools of exclusion. ^[17]
Bill de Blasio, then mayor of New York City, unveiled a plan to phase out gifted and talented programs because non-white students were underrepresented. He called the single test at age four discriminatory and replaced it with an equitable model based on third-grade evaluations and teacher input. His administration presented the changes as necessary to end a two-tier system. The move influenced national debates on selective education even as it drew criticism from parents and advocates. ^[13]

▶ Supporting Quotes (34)

“Steven Pinker asserts in his new new book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows that the fact that practically nobody knows about racial differences in average IQ is good because it is an “intellectually minor topic.””— The Race War Over Giftedness

“Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away Gifted programs could be shutting out millions of high-performing Black and Latino children from low-income families. Can districts fix their advanced education problem? By Troy Closson Oct. 27, 2025”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“Author contributions: D.C. and L.G. designed research, performed research, contributed new reagents/analytic tools, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“Comparisons of the newly identified gifted students with those who would have been placed in the absence of screening show that Blacks and Hispanics, free/reduced price lunch participants, English language learners, and girls were all systematically “underreferred” in the traditional parent/teacher referral system.”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“My problem of practice was the ongoing inequalities that are happening in gifted and talented education programs, most importantly regarding the disproportionate underrepresentation of students from marginalized backgrounds, such as Black, Latinx, Native American, low-income, and English language learners (Peters, 2022).”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“Ashley S. Flynn School of Education, Johns Hopkins University”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“gifted education programs […] have long been a White space – over-enrolled by White students, taught by White teachers, and protected by White middle-class parents (Wright et al., 2017 p. 48).”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“"For years, New York City has essentially maintained two parallel public school systems. A group of selective schools and programs geared towards students labeled gifted and talented is mostly filled with white and Asian children. The rest of the system is open to all students and is predominantly Black and Hispanic." (New York Times, October 8, 2021)”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“"With Black and White students largely segregated within the schools they attend, racialized tracking has made it possible to have desegregation without integration" (Tyson 2011)”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“This article review focuses on referral, identification and retention of CLD students to address the problem of underrepresentation in gifted education. The central argument is that the referral process and identification for gifted students must be culturally and linguistically sensitive and teacher training must be incorporated into professional development to achieve this goal.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“Gifted and talented programs in the United States have been an object of controversy for decades, with many arguing that gifted education widens the gap between high achieving students and their peers, typically along racial lines.”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“Through a multilevel path analysis of gifted identification patterns, McBee (2010, 291-292) found that Black and Hispanic students, as well as students who qualified for free or reduced lunch, were less likely to be identified.”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“Students of color can be shut out of advanced coursework pipelines as early as elementary school when gifted and talented programs are sorted out.”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“It was only in October last year that the then Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, announced the city’s gifted programme would be replaced because non-white students were underrepresented.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“Dr James Gallagher—a scientific authority and activist for disabled and gifted children— put it best in his 1976 book, Teaching the Gifted Child. There he told the story of an American elementary school principal who once made a feather-rustling proposal. Mr Palcuzzi wanted the school to develop a programme for gifted and talented students.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“In 2004, two former software engineers, Jan and Bob Davidson, wrote about their experience supporting profoundly gifted children through their non-profit organization, the Davidson Institute.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan Friday to phase out the gifted and talented programs for elementary school students that many educators say discriminate against Black and Hispanic children... “The era of judging 4-year-olds based on a single test is over,” de Blasio said in a statement.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

““Gifted and talented programs have been an integral option for generations of schoolkids,” tweeted state Sen. John Liu, a Democrat from Queens who chairs a panel on New York City schools. “@BilldeBlasio promised intensive public engagement about it but now wants total elimination.””— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“A top official at The National Association for Gifted Children... said "equity in gifted education must be addressed" but de Blasio's plan falls short. "Though we support several aspects of Brilliant NYC... we are not confident that accelerated learning by itself will meet the needs of our gifted learners equally," Lauri Kirsch, president of the NAGC Board of Directors, said.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

““The elimination of the G&T program is just another example of this administration’s continued assault on high achieving students and accelerated learners," said Yiatin Chu, co-president of PLACE NYC, a New York City advocacy group.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“The purposes of this article are to illumine the racist genealogy of gifted education policies and practices in the United States, to demonstrate how deficit discourses continue today... I also aim to demonstrate how giftedness is an example of whiteness as property, or unearned white privilege, that, unintentionally or not, maintains a social caste system in schools.”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“President Jimmy Carter’s administration maintained that PACE was rigorously developed to be fair and was accurate and useful. But in the final days of Carter’s term, the administration agreed to a legal settlement with the plaintiffs agreeing to stop using the test and give them veto power over any replacement.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“Tina Hone is the founder and executive director of the “Coalition of the Silence,” which filed the complaint against the school with the Board of Education in conjunction with the NAACP this week.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“Dr. Juliet Curci (she/her) Project Lead and Principal Investigator Assistant Dean of College Access and Persistence Temple University”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“Dr. Donna-Marie Cole-Malott (she/her) Project Co-Lead and Co-Facilitator Assistant Professor of Professional and Secondary Education East Stroudsburg University”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“The purpose of DEI is to transform the systems that harm people, Janice Gassam Asare, author of 'Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace: A Guide for Equity and Inclusion,' tells Axios. DEI forces people to have difficult conversations about systems that discriminate, and it doesn't single out white people or call all of them racist, Asare said.”— Anti-DEI bills targeting colleges have surged since 2021

“"We fight DEI because we see it as a mortal threat to the American way of life," Claremont Institute president Ryan P. Williams and state coalitions senior director Scott Yenor recently wrote on the think tank's website.”— Anti-DEI bills targeting colleges have surged since 2021

“Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“The first piece is set in the duplex on Park Avenue in Manhattan inhabited by conductor Leonard Bernstein, his wife the actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre, and their three children. Bernstein assembled many of his wealthy socialite friends to meet with representatives of the Black Panthers”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

““There should be nothing to hide, and much to be proud of and promote,” Jackson told the company’s executives after politely requesting its diversity stats.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

““Many of the companies in the Valley have been reluctant to divulge that data, including Google,” he responded. “And quite frankly, I think we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re wrong about that.””— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“"Poor Latino kids are not being identified, and I worry part of that is language," Hone said. "African-American kids are not being identified. I'm worried that's race."”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

“"...I think that what they bring up is a valid concern," said Ryan McElveen, member-at-large for the Fairfax County Public School Board.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

Organizations Involved

The New York Times published multiple articles portraying disparities in gifted programs as the exclusion of high-performing Black and Latino children that districts could fix through better policies. Its coverage framed early testing and selective enrollment as creating parallel segregated systems within diverse schools. The paper's reporting helped turn local disputes into national symbols of inequity. This amplification encouraged policymakers to view underrepresentation as evidence of systemic flaws rather than differences in early skill development. ^[1][5]

New York City public schools funneled select four-year-olds into gifted programs through early testing, which sparked family disputes over access and reinforced the assumption that competitive sorting was unfair across groups. The district later responded by phasing out the programs in 2021, citing their contribution to racial segregation. Officials replaced them with Brilliant NYC, an initiative relying on universal teacher training and later evaluations. The changes affected the nation's largest school system and became a case study in equity-driven reform. ^[1][13]

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights expanded its oversight to include gifted programs, treating minority underrepresentation as parallel to overrepresentation in special education. It spotlighted disparities in a 2014 report and ordered interventions such as hiring consultants in districts like South Orange-Maplewood, New Jersey. The agency used Civil Rights Data Collection figures showing White students at 68 percent of gifted enrollment despite being 56 percent of total students. These actions lent federal weight to the view that identification practices were biased and fixable. ^[6][18]

The Fairfax County School Board adopted a new admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology that replaced standardized tests with socioeconomic quotas and holistic review to boost Black and Hispanic enrollment. It defended the changes as race-neutral remedies for prior exclusion of minorities. The board faced legal challenges from Asian American families who argued the policy discriminated against high achievers. Courts ultimately found the approach likely violated equal protection, though the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. ^[21][22]

The NAACP, in partnership with the Coalition of the Silence, filed federal civil rights complaints against selective schools like TJHSST, alleging that low minority enrollment of 1.4 percent Black and 2.7 percent Latino proved the schools shut out disadvantaged students. The organization supported race-conscious or proxy policies as necessary corrections. Its involvement helped frame merit-based admissions as discriminatory under disparate impact logic. The complaints led to policy reviews and resource reallocations even as enrollment gaps persisted. ^[20][28]

▶ Supporting Quotes (51)

“from the New York Times news section: Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“In New York City, families sparred over whether a few thousand 4-year-olds should be funneled into gifted education programs.”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“In Seattle, teachers disagreed on how to improve the dismal enrollment rates of Black and Latino students in schools for gifted pupils, a problem decades in the making.”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“And in Fairfax County, Va., school leaders wrestled with a thorny question: Should we still label children “gifted”?”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“In response to these disparities, the District introduced a universal screening program in spring 2005.”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“Studies reveal that gifted and talented programs remain some of the most segregated sectors in school despite efforts to correct disparities (Hertzog et al., 2023).”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“the most recently released federal data revealed that White students comprised 47.3% of the overall student population but 58.4% of the gifted population in comparison to Black students who comprised 15.1% of overall student enrollment but only 8.2% of the gifted enrollment (U.S. Department of Education, 2018).”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“Public attention to these programs was elevated by the 2021 announcement that New York City Public Schools planned to phase out its G&T programs, with the effects of these programs on racial segregation explicitly cited as a primary motivation for their elimination.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“Data is drawn from Civil Rights Data Collection surveys (CRDC), conducted by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“In 1979 the National Academy of Sciences was asked to conduct a study to determine the factors accounting for the disproportionate representation of minority students and males in special education programs... Twenty years later, concern about the disproportionate representation of minority children in special education persists, and the NRC has been asked to revisit the issue.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“This committee, unlike its predecessor, has been asked by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to broaden its charge to consider the representation of minority children in gifted and talented programs.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“between 1987-1988 and 1998-1999, there was a 35 percent increase in the number of students aged 6-21 served under the IDEA.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“According to the National Center for Research on Gifted Education (NCRGE), White and Asian students are more likely to be referred and identified as gifted as opposed to their Black and Hispanic peers... A significant finding from a 2014-2020 research project by NCRGE found disparities in gifted identification based on race, ethnicity and poverty.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“In 1972, the U.S. Department of Education issued the Marland Report which brought gifted education to the national stage. The Marland Report identified serious deficiencies in education for “America’s most bright and talented students” and defined giftedness leaving a lasting legacy.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“Yet, decades later the National Association for Gifted Children and The Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted (NAGC, 2015) found only thirty-two states reporting any mandate for identification or services for gifted and talented.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“In Seattle, teachers disagreed on how to improve the dismal enrollment rates of Black and Latino students in schools for gifted pupils, a problem decades in the making.”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“And in Fairfax County, Va., school leaders wrestled with a thorny question: Should we still label children “gifted”?”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“In New York City, families sparred over whether a few thousand 4-year-olds should be funneled into gifted education programs.”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“As of 2012, sixteen states had no standardized decision-making policy for gifted identification and of those who did, the majority mandated that schools use intelligence tests (16 states), achievement tests (17 states), and/or teacher and parent nominations (13 states) to identify gifted students (McClain and Pfeiffer 2012, 68-69).”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

““We only know about existing inequities in access to advanced classes and AP specifically because of transparent data,” said Kristen Hengtgen, a senior policy analyst focusing on access to advanced coursework at The Education Trust, an advocacy and research organization.”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“In a January 2024 report, the College Board found that 79 percent of public high school students attended high schools offering at least five AP courses in the 2022-23 school year. In that same school year, however, Native American students were significantly less likely to have five or more AP courses available in their high schools.”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) protested. However, Palcuzzi didn’t retreat, in fact he upped the request. [...] Now outraged, the PTA declared Palcuzzi’s proposal elitist, divisive, and anti-democratic.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“The Chicago Board of Education recently voted to end the city’s highly successful selective-enrollment public schools, instead directing their funding to its failing general education schools. As its rationale, the Board cited a desire to move away from “admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.””— What Ayn Rand got right about the left

“In other words, Chicago’s teachers union would prefer their students to be universally immiserated than for the most capable to be able to rise above their peers. Equality over excellence.”— What Ayn Rand got right about the left

“De Blasio’s announcement... sent shock waves through New York City... The move also puts de Blasio’s likely successor, Eric Adams, in a bind... “Clearly the Department of Education must improve outcomes for children from lower-income areas.””— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported in June that the city's public schools are the most segregated in the nation. “Two-thirds of a century after the Supreme Court said that segregated schools are ‘inherently unequal’ New York is a national epicenter of racial segregation in unequal schools,” Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, wrote.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“Massachusetts eliminated its 1989 allocation--a modest $900,000--for grants supporting gifted education”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“I have heard a school official admonish a gathering of academically gifted elementary- and junior- high-school students that they shouldn’t think that they are “better than anybody else.” This remark was made in the course of explaining why their special program was cut from the budget, even though it consumed less than 1 percent of the district’s total expenditures.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States.”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“A Department of Education Office for Civil Rights report from 2014 called attention to a Sacramento, California, district... Though the Office for Civil Rights ordered the district to hire a consultant to fix this, segregation remains an ongoing challenge.”— The Other Segregation

“In the South Orange–Maplewood School District in New Jersey, the American Civil Liberties Union stated in a 2014 complaint that racial segregation across academic tracks “has created a school within a school at Columbia High School,” where more than 70 percent of the students in lower-level classes were black and more than 70 percent of the students in advanced classes were white.”— The Other Segregation

“A 1981 court order blocked agencies from using any test for job applicants that would result in a statistically significant difference in hiring rates between blacks and Hispanics on one hand, and whites on the other.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“which filed the complaint against the school with the Board of Education in conjunction with the NAACP this week.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant – Appellant.”— Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

“NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND, INC.; CASA VIRGINIA; ASIAN AMERICAN YOUTH LEADERSHIP EMPOWERMENT AND DEVELOPMENT; NATIONAL COALITION ON SCHOOL DIVERSITY; POVERTY & RACE RESEARCH ACTION COUNSEL; AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION; AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA; LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS; WASHINGTON LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS; TJ ALUMNI FOR RACIAL JUSTICE; VIRGINIA STATE CONFERENCE OF THE NAACP; CASA, INC.; HISPANIC FEDERATION; HAMKAE CENTER; Amici Supporting Appellant.”— Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

“Erin Elizabeth Wilcox, PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION, Sacramento, California, for Appellee.”— Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

“The case, involving Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va.”— Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Diversity Efforts at Top High School

“The U.S. Office of Personnel Management “must be relieved of the Luevano Consent Decree to return common sense to federal hiring,” the Trump administration will tell the D.C. federal court”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“A Daily Wire analysis of OPM data showed that blacks are over-represented in the federal workforce, not under-represented, making it hard to justify the continuance of the affirmative action decree. Eighteen percent of cabinet agency employees are black”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“In April 2023, the Pennsylvania State Board of Education included the following language in its amendments to Chapter 49 of the Pennsylvania Code (relating to the Certification of Professional Personnel)”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“In 2022, the William Penn Foundation awarded a grant to Temple University’s College of Education and Human Development to support the implementation of the CRSE Competencies in teacher education in Pennsylvania.”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“The PA Teacher Education Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) Initiative’s Repository is a collaboration between Temple University and the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“the Philadelphia Police Department reported that in 2017, 23 hate crime victims were white... In 2018, the breakdown was 23 white... But on April 14, 2021, the department emailed me a new report... in 2018, three victims were white.”— In Philadelphia, the majority of hate crime victims were white people

“The second part of Wolfe's book is set at the Office of Economic Opportunity in San Francisco, which was in charge of administering many of the anti-poverty programs of the time. Wolfe presents the office as corrupt and continually gamed by hustlers diverting cash into their own pockets.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“"These Radical Chic Evenings", first published in June 1970 in New York magazine, about a gathering Leonard Bernstein held for the Black Panther Party”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“Two weeks later, Google’s senior vice president of people operations, Laszlo Bock, did just that. “Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity,” he said, upon revealing that the company’s overall workforce was only 30 percent female, 3 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent black.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“In March 2014, his Rainbow PUSH Coalition opened an office in the Bay Area.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“The NAACP has filed a complaint regarding the admissions policy at the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, saying it keeps African-American and Latino students out.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

“Martina Hone with the Coalition of Silence claims the Fairfax County Public School System discriminates against minority students and those with disabilities.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

The Foundation

The assumption that gifted programs shut out high-performing Black and Latino children from low-income families due to systemic flaws that districts can fix rested on a kernel of observable truth: national statistics showed White students participating at 7.6 percent while Black students were at 3.6 percent, Hispanic at 4.6 percent, and English learners at 1.8 percent. A substantial body of earlier research had documented that teacher referrals often missed disadvantaged students who later proved qualified on standardized measures, making universal screening appear as a reasonable corrective. Thoughtful observers at the time could point to concrete district data where only 28 percent of gifted third graders were Black or Hispanic despite comprising 60 percent of enrollment, with some high-poverty schools reporting zero gifted students. These patterns seemed like evidence of fixable referral biases rather than differences in the tails of cognitive distributions. Critics now note that such interpretations overlooked decades of accumulated IQ test data showing stable group differences that predict identification rates. ^[2][1]

Studies controlling for achievement still found Black students less likely to be identified as gifted, which lent credence to claims of teacher bias and culturally unfair tests. Researchers like those behind the 2012 Ford study and multilevel analyses argued that nominations and standardized exams reflected the norms of powerful groups and produced higher misclassification rates for students of color. This evidence appeared compelling because it aligned with broader equity narratives and historical patterns of tracking after desegregation. A growing number of scholars extended the logic through Critical Race Theory, treating giftedness as a social construct akin to race that granted Whites rights of exclusion. Yet mounting evidence challenges the universality of these explanations, as longitudinal data show persistent gaps even after interventions. ^[3][4][9]

The belief drew further support from qualitative case studies documenting disproportionate White and Asian enrollment alongside barriers for low-income families, framing gifted programs as contributors to within-school segregation. Historical examples from 1970s southern districts, where tracking followed court-ordered desegregation, made modern gifted sorting seem like de facto continuation of racial separation. Federal data from the Civil Rights Data Collection reinforced the narrative by highlighting inverse patterns between gifted underrepresentation and special education overrepresentation for minorities. Proponents argued that vague definitions and reliance on subjective nominations allowed bias to flourish. Significant evidence now questions whether these programs meaningfully alter overall segregation indices or if the disparities primarily reflect real differences in high-end academic readiness. ^[5][6][18]

▶ Supporting Quotes (52)

“It’s almost as if we have tests for these questions, and vast amounts of data have been published over the generations.”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“In 2012, 7.6% of White K−12 students participated in gifted and talented programs nationwide, compared with only 3.6% of Blacks, 4.6% of Hispanics, and 1.8% of English learners (ocrdata.ed.gov/StateNationalEstimations/Estimations_2011_12).”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“Only 28% of gifted students in third grade were Black or Hispanic, compared with 60% of all students in the District. Thirteen regular elementary schools in the District had no gifted children in third grade in 2004 or 2005”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“The issue arises from deep-rooted barriers within systems and institutions, such as biased identification methods, unequal resource access, and a lack of diversity among educators (Ford, 2012).”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“In their study, Peters et al. (2020) called for a rethinking of gifted identification processes to include multiple measures of potential, such as creativity, leadership, and problem-solving skills, rather than relying solely on IQ or standardized test scores (p.9).”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“Just like race and class, giftedness is a social construct.”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“Gifted education is conceptualized as historically being a form of White property.”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“Even when researchers control for variables such as academic performance, age, grade, and family income, Black students are significantly less likely to be identified as gifted and participate in advanced academic programs compared to their White peers (Grissom & Redding, 2015; Hodges & Gentry, 2020).”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“A large body of research, primarily in educational sociology, documents that G&T programs disproportionately enroll white and Asian students and investigates systematic barriers that disadvantaged students face in accessing G&T education (Lewis & Diamond 2015; Roda 2015; Smith-Peterson 2021). This literature primarily consists of informative qualitative case studies, but does not attempt to quantify the overall impacts of G&T education on racial segregation.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“There is little question that within-school tracking programs like G&T education have historically been used as an intentional strategy by segregationists to subvert legally required school integration.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“These studies note the vague and varying definitions of disability used across states and the confusion regarding both type and severity of educational need.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“Studies conducted early in the history of Public Law 94-142 (Brewer and Kakalik, 1974) noted that one of the major implementation problems associated with federal policy on special education was the mislabeling of students as handicapped... A 1970 survey of the 50 special education directors across the nation conducted by Goldstein et al. (1975) indicated that 56 percent considered mislabeling of students to be “the major controversy in special education today” (p.11).”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“For students identified as gifted and talented, an almost inverse relationship to special education is observed, with minority student groups who are overrepresented in programs for those with disabilities being underrepresented in gifted and talented programs.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“This research demonstrated that EL, free or reduced lunch (FRL), Latinx and Black students, are being identified at a much lower rate than White middle-class students even after controlling for student achievement. These underserved populations are less likely to be identified even when academic achievement scores in reading and mathematics are the same as their “non-underserved” peers.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“Nationally, White students comprise approximately 56% of the total school population but almost 68% of the students in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2016). ... although African American students make up 17% of the school population, they are only 9% of GATE students.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“those programs are a lightning rod, because the divide between who gets in and who is left out often falls along lines of race, income and disability status.”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“In classrooms across the United States, some children display high-level skills from an early age: first graders who breeze through “Charlotte’s Web,” or 10-year-olds who can tell their friends how to find the circumference of a circle.”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“One explanation of why underprivileged students may be at a disadvantage is teacher bias in the nomination stage of the identification process. Studies have shown that a nomination requirement for students to move into the testing stage result in a large proportion of gifted students being missed (McBee, Peters, and Miller 2016, 261-263), and due to teacher bias, many of the students being passed over are from minority groups (Ford, Grantham, and Whiting 2008b, 291-294).”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“In addition, minority students and low-income students of similar academic and cognitive ability as their peers continue to underperform on racially biased standardized exams, such as those administered during the evaluation process for gifted programs (White et al. 2016, 11-12; McBee 2010, 284; Grodsky and Warren 2008, 392-393).”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“Disadvantaged populations are held to standards that favor White students in the gifted identification process, contributing to higher rates of misclassification for students of color (McBee 2010, 261-263).”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“Native American students were significantly less likely to have five or more AP courses available in their high schools. That trend persists when looking at which racial/ethnic groups attended schools providing 10 or more AP courses, and schools providing at least one AP STEM course.”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“Whilst discussing an early draft of this article with a friend, I received the same question: but don’t most super high IQ kids end up doing something like Elon Musk? In short, no. Worryingly, gifted scholars have long written about an ‘epidemic’ of gifted underachievement: This disturbing claim is supported by evidence which indicates that up to, or even greater than, half the population of gifted students exhibit significant academic underachievement (although the most commonly reported prevalence rates are between 10% and 20%).”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“In a country like America, 0.13% of the population will be profoundly gifted (or 13 out of 10,000 individuals). Barbara Clark, a Professor Emeritus of California State University, describes these children thusly: Studies of the profoundly gifted learners suggest that they differ significantly from highly gifted students as a result of differently wired neurons that allow more complex and efficient neural highways for transmitting information.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

““admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.””— What Ayn Rand got right about the left

“which helped create a two-tier school system where 75 percent of the students in gifted and talented programs were either white or of Asian descent, while the students who didn’t make that cut were relegated to inferior schools with fewer resources.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“Currently, the program admits only 2,500 pupils a year out of 65,000 kindergartners citywide... basing children's future on how they perform on a test taken at age 4 is unfair to the parents who have neither the time nor resources to prep their kids for this examination.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“Although teachers try to challenge all students, they are frequently unfamiliar with the needs of gifted children and do not know how to best serve them in the classroom. A national study conducted by the Fordham Institute found that 58% of teachers have received no professional development focused on teaching academically advanced students and 73% of teachers agreed that “Too often, the brightest students are bored and under-challenged in school–we’re not giving them a sufficient chance to thrive.””— Myths About Gifted Students

“Average or below-average students do not look to the gifted students in the class as role models. Watching or relying on someone who is expected to succeed does little to increase a struggling student’s sense of self-confidence.”— Myths About Gifted Students

“Many educators and policymakers wrongly believe that gifted students need no help in developing their talent, and that, because of their exceptional intellectual abilities, they rarely suffer from emotional difficulties.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“Those who subscribe to the notion that gifted children don’t need help perhaps think that their abilities develop all by themselves, without benefit of specialized groupings, training, or instructors.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“The theoretical framework undergirding this study is based on Harris’ (1993) work that defines the property functions of whiteness in the United States, which include: 1. The productive capacity of property... 4. The absolute right to exclude...”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“Abundant research has shown that standardized tests such as the Stanford-Binet and the SAT are culturally biased against students of color (Margolin, 1994; Valdés, 2003; Valencia & Suzuki, 2001). Moreover, students from poverty score lower than students from middle- and upper-class backgrounds... Oakes (2005) agrees, pointing to the tendency of gifted educators to mistake exposure to opportunity as inborn potential.”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“Black students make up nearly 17 percent of the total student population nationwide. Yet less than 10 percent of students in GATE are black. A shocking 53 percent of remedial students are black. This disparity across tracks is what social scientists commonly call “racialized tracking”—in which students of color get sorted out of educational opportunities and long-term socioeconomic success.”— The Other Segregation

“A Department of Education Office for Civil Rights report from 2014 called attention to a Sacramento, California, district where black students accounted for 16.3 percent of the district’s enrollment but only 5.5 percent of students in GATE programs. At the other end of the state, in San Diego, 8 percent of students are black, but just 3 percent of GATE students are.”— The Other Segregation

“Yasmiyn Irizarry, a professor of African studies at the University of Texas at Austin whose child attends LASA, wrote that this design was “reminiscent of apartheid.””— The Other Segregation

“In the 1970s, OPM evaluated hiring prospects via a written test called the Professional Administrative Career Examination (PACE). Its scores accurately predicted who would go on to be exemplary employees. But a class-action lawsuit said that testing for cognitive ability would reduce the number of blacks and Hispanics in the workforce.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“This year’s incoming freshman class will be just 2.7% Latino and 1.4% black.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“It more directly involved a 2007 ruling that barred school boards from promoting integration by using race as a factor in pupil assignments but that suggested officials could consider the racial impact of broader policies such as where to build new campuses.”— Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Diversity Efforts at Top High School

“The 1981 court order blocked agencies from using any test for job applicants that would result in a statistically significant difference in hiring rates between blacks and Hispanics on one hand, and whites on the other.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“Its scores accurately predicted who would go on to be exemplary employees. But a class-action lawsuit said that testing for cognitive ability would reduce the number of blacks and Hispanics in the workforce.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“This year’s incoming freshman class will be just 2.7% Latino and 1.4% black.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“a new federal civil rights complaint says the school is essentially shutting out minority students.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“There are nine Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) Competencies that inform the preparation and professional development of teachers and other educators in Pennsylvania.”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“At the core of CRSE is an anti-racist undertaking that aims to eliminate the systemic and institutional barriers that inhibit the success of all Pennsylvania’s students—particularly those who have been historically marginalized.”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“That led schools, governments, corporations and others to create diversity initiatives that typically focus on racial sensitivity — and the nation's history of overlooking many of the stories of non-white Americans. The backlash that followed focused largely on conservatives' claims that DEI programs undermine traditional teachings of American history — and often had the effect of making white students feel guilty.”— Anti-DEI bills targeting colleges have surged since 2021

“data show Messina was part of the racial group most victimized by hate crimes in Philadelphia: white people.”— In Philadelphia, the majority of hate crime victims were white people

“The essay centers on the irony of these failed programs fortifying not the diets but the resentment and contempt of the black, Chicano, Filipino, Chinese, Indian, and Samoan populations of San Francisco.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“Both essays looked at the conflict between black rage and white guilt.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple did so a few months after, and it wasn’t pretty: In most cases, less than 10 percent of the companies’ overall employees were black or Latino, compared with 27 percent in the American workforce as a whole.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“Take Facebook, whose just-updated numbers show that it’s tech employees are just 16 percent female, 3 percent Latino, and 1 percent black. It’s worse at the top: Whites hold nearly three-quarters of Facebook’s senior leadership positions.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“Their report indicates this year's class at Thomas Jefferson is made up of 476 students. Of those, 43 percent are white, 46 percent are Asian, and a little more than 8 percent are multiracial. Only 2.1 percent are Hispanic and a bleak 0.6 percent -- just 3 students -- are black.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

“People of Color Don’t Find Most Microaggressions Offensive The survey finds that many microaggressions that colleges and universities advise faculty and students to avoid aren’t considered offensive by most African Americans and Latinos.”— The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America

How It Spread

Media outlets such as the New York Times spread the assumption by consistently framing debates over gifted programs as evidence that districts shut out high-performing Black and Latino children through fixable flaws in screening and access. Articles highlighted dismal enrollment rates in cities like Seattle and Fairfax County, portraying the issue as decades in the making and solvable with policy changes. This coverage turned local disputes into national symbols of inequity and encouraged readers to view underrepresentation as proof of systemic exclusion. The repetition across major outlets helped embed the narrative in public understanding. ^[1][8]

Academic literature propagated the idea through journals that emphasized racial inequities in identification, often citing teacher bias in nominations and the cultural unfairness of standardized tests. Publications like the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlighted how universal screening increased representation of low-income and minority students, lending empirical weight to claims of prior systemic failure. Critical Race Theory frameworks in education research framed gifted programs as perpetuating Whiteness as property. These scholarly channels created an environment where questioning the assumption carried professional risks. ^[2][3][4]

Federal agencies and advocacy organizations amplified the narrative by publishing data that spotlighted disparities and calling for interventions. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and reports such as the Marland Report of 1972 treated underrepresentation as evidence of squandered talent that targeted efforts could recover. Civil rights complaints and amicus briefs in court cases further spread the view that merit-based admissions at selective schools discriminated against minorities. The combination of official statistics, media amplification, and academic consensus made the assumption difficult to challenge openly. ^[6][7][20]

▶ Supporting Quotes (40)

“Our findings raise the question of whether a systemic failure to identify qualified students from all backgrounds may help explain the broader pattern of minority underrepresentation in all advanced K−12 academic programs.”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“Throughout the research, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is used to look into why these disparities happen.”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“Meyer et al. (2024) reviewed research on equity in higher education to address the issue of disparities in advanced academic achievement between high- and low-income students, and between White students and students of color.”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“Research in the field of gifted education has increasingly focused on racial inequities over recent years”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“But as the opening epigraphs emphasize, beyond the racial sorting of students across schools there is also widespread concern that educational segregation occurs across classrooms or instructional groups even within racially diverse school buildings.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“A 2019 survey of more than 1,200 G&T teachers and coordinators conducted by Education Week (Kurtz et al. 2019) provides some systemic information on the common practices of G&T programs.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“Since the passage of the federal special education law in 1975, now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), there has been racial disproportion in the assignment of students to special education... The problem confronted by the earlier NRC committee persists despite almost 20 years of public scrutiny and discussion.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“"The problems of squandered talent were even more evident among economically disadvantaged and minority students due to fewer advanced educational opportunities” (p. 430).”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“From major cities to suburban districts, the question of how to identify and educate advanced students has emerged in recent years as one of the most volatile issues in public education.”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“But those programs are a lightning rod, because the divide between who gets in and who is left out often falls along lines of race, income and disability status.”— Why America’s Debate Over Which Children Are ‘Gifted’ Won’t Go Away

“There is currently a large body of literature on underrepresentation in gifted programs for Black and Latinx students, as well as low-income students, as well as low-income students, however academic research on the impact of such programs, especially for disadvantaged populations, is a far less developed research space.”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

““Because the College Board has so much more granular data than most states have or states offer, it’s really important data that’s necessary for advocates, educators, education leaders, parents, and policymakers to know so we can identify barriers and implement interventions,” she added.”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“Referencing Richard Hofstadter’s famous book, the Davidsons suggest their stories epitomise anti-intellectualism in American life.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“As its rationale, the Board cited a desire to move away from “admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.””— What Ayn Rand got right about the left

““Brilliant NYC will deliver accelerated instruction for tens of thousands of children, as opposed to a select few. Every New York City child deserves to reach their full potential, and this new, equitable model gives them that chance.””— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“The new plan comes two years after a diversity task force in New York recommended scrapping most selective programs that use test scores and other criteria to determine class placement...”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“A national study conducted by the Fordham Institute found that 58% of teachers have received no professional development focused on teaching academically advanced students and 73% of teachers agreed that “Too often, the brightest students are bored and under-challenged in school–we’re not giving them a sufficient chance to thrive.””— Myths About Gifted Students

“Just such a confusion of excellence, elitism, and equality--a confusion that may be uniquely American--has contributed to the widespread misconception that programs for the academically gifted are elitist. Only half of the states mandate programs for gifted children under special-education legislation, and, in my experience, this view is the most frequently cited reason for failing to provide services.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“Relatively recent research is operationalizing the concept of white privilege and encouraging educational leaders to participate in courageous conversations about race in order to create more equitable schooling practices (Brooks & Arnold, 2013; McIntosh, 1990; Singleton & Linton, 2005).”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“the ironic tendency of many educator preparation programs that require students to take coursework in learning and leadership theory while graduate certified teachers and administrators do not show a deep understanding of the research base and the ways of translating that knowledge into practice.”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“The segregation of America’s public schools is a perpetual newsmaker. The fact that not even 1 percent of the incoming freshman class identifies as black at New York City’s elite Stuyvesant High School made national headlines last month.”— The Other Segregation

“This disparity across tracks is what social scientists commonly call “racialized tracking”... Teachers’ biases against black students limit their chances for selective advanced opportunities.”— The Other Segregation

“The 1981 consent decree relies on the “disparate impact” theory — which holds that, any time an outcome doesn’t exactly mirror the races of the overall population, it is enough to prove racism even if no tangible racism occurred”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“However, a new federal civil rights complaint says the school is essentially shutting out minority students.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“MASSACHUSETTS; CALIFORNIA; COLORADO; DELAWARE; DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; HAWAII; ILLINOIS; MAINE; MARYLAND; MICHIGAN; MINNESOTA; NEW MEXICO; NEW YORK; OREGON; VERMONT; WASHINGTON; PROFESSORS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND EDUCATION POLICY; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Amici Supporting Appellant.”— Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

“The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a case seeking to block selective public schools from using race-neutral admissions policies”— Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Diversity Efforts at Top High School

“Hone sits down with Soledad on Starting Point today to explain why the complaint was filed and to discuss diversity in America’s schools.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“Between August 2022 and June 2023, through monthly meetings and independent exercises, participants in the “CRSE Community of Practice” explored, reflected upon, and ultimately integrated into a teacher education course or program element the Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) Competencies.”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“We hope that the materials included in this repository support the critical advancement of culturally relevant and sustaining education across the educational landscape in Pennsylvania and beyond.”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“The wave of anti-DEI bills in state legislatures has come amid an ongoing conservative backlash against initiatives aimed at fighting systemic racism. The backlash has been driven by Republican lawmakers in response to the racial reckoning across America that was ignited in 2020 by the murder of George Floyd.”— Anti-DEI bills targeting colleges have surged since 2021

“Despite little, if any, media coverage... Hate crimes happen against white people, and such incidents are not publicized with the same vigor as when the victim is not white.”— In Philadelphia, the majority of hate crime victims were white people

“Wolfe describes hapless city bureaucrats, the Flak Catchers, whose function has been reduced to taking abuse, or "mau-mauing" ... from militant young blacks and Samoans, who are depicted as reveling in the newfound vulnerability of "the Man". The Flak Catchers smile pathetically, allowing their tormentors to indulge themselves in abuse; the process is seen as a farcical but useful expedient, condescending toward the resentment of these communities.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“The phrase "radical chic" has entered into the political and cultural lexicon to describe the adoption of radical or quasi-radical causes by members of the wealthy high-society and celebrity class.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“The exchange was the public culmination of some behind-the-scenes arm wrestling that was vintage Jesse Jackson.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“Rather than simply criticize Google’s abysmal numbers, Jackson issued a statement calling for other companies to “follow Google’s lead” and release their data too.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“Allegations of discrimination have hit a prestigious Alexandria high school. Two organizations have filed a complaint against the admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

“The percentage who say these microaggressions are not offensive are as follows: Telling a recent immigrant: “You speak good English.” Black: 67%; Latino: 77%”— The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America

“One explanation being teacher bias in the nomination stage of the identification process”— Racial bias in gifted and talented placement

Resulting Policies

New York City public schools enacted early gifted testing at age four, assuming the process measured potential equally across groups, then later phased out the programs in 2021 because non-white students were underrepresented. Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration replaced the single test with Brilliant NYC, which relied on third-grade evaluations, teacher input, and universal training in an effort to create a more equitable model. The policy change affected incoming kindergarteners starting in fall 2022 and was justified as ending a two-tier system that contributed to segregation. Critics argued it reduced options for high-achieving students across demographics. ^[1][13]

A large urban school district in Florida implemented universal screening with the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test for all second graders in spring 2005, automatically referring high scorers for IQ evaluation under the belief that traditional referrals missed qualified poor and minority children. The policy produced notable short-term gains in identification rates for subsidized-meal students, Latinos, and Blacks. It was suspended in 2010 due to budget cuts, after which gifted rates in third grade returned to baseline levels. The experiment became a frequently cited example for those advocating systemic fixes. ^[2]

Fairfax County School Board in Virginia replaced test-based admissions at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology with a holistic policy using middle-school quotas and socioeconomic factors to increase Black and Hispanic enrollment. The board presented the changes as race-neutral remedies for prior exclusion, though they reduced Asian American representation. The Fourth Circuit later ruled the policy likely violated equal protection by discriminating against high-achieving Asian applicants. The case illustrated ongoing tension between equity goals and merit-based selection. ^[21]

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management enforced the 1981 Luevano Consent Decree, which banned the Professional Administrative Career Examination because of its disparate impact on Black and Hispanic applicants and replaced it with self-rating questionnaires. The decree gave preferences for Spanish proficiency and knowledge of Hispanic culture in federal hiring. It remained in effect for four decades despite evidence that self-ratings poorly predicted job performance. The Trump administration later moved to dissolve the order, citing conflicts with recent Supreme Court rulings against race-based classifications. ^[19]

▶ Supporting Quotes (32)

“New York City tends to have the most crazily early dividing age, both for private and public schools... In New York City, families sparred over whether a few thousand 4-year-olds should be funneled into gifted education programs.”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“Under the new program, all second graders completed the Naglieri Non-Verbal Ability Test (NNAT)... All students scoring at least 130 points on the test, and ELL/FRL students scoring at least 115 points, were automatically eligible to be referred for full evaluation”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“Peters et al. (2020) called for a rethinking of gifted identification processes to include multiple measures of potential, such as creativity, leadership, and problem-solving skills, rather than relying solely on IQ or standardized test scores.”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“The difficulties encountered by these students arise from a need for more funding in their schools, which restricts access to quality resources, enrichment programs, and skilled educators who can support their growth (Yeung & Mun, 2022, p. 320).”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“Gifted education is not a federally mandated program, so there is a great deal of discretion in determining how to both identify gifted students and deliver advanced academic programs across the country (Wright et al., 2017).”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“The reports concluded that a fundamental issue confronting special education administrators was to identify and use nondiscriminatory devices and procedures.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“Since this report, there have been various education acts passed, the first most notable being the Javits Act which congress passed in 1988 and provided funds for gifted education research.”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“Based on my results, policy recommendations include: a redesign of the identification process to increase representation in gifted programs, enhanced teaching training centered around fostering inclusive learning environments, and continued assessment of the experiences of students in gifted programs, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds.”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“It’s long been the case that state spending for those with learning disabilities is an order of magnitude larger than the funding available for the gifted.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“Under de Blasio’s plan, students enrolled in the gifted and talented programs will stay in them. But the programs will no longer exist for incoming kindergarten students next fall. Instead... the city will sort out which third-graders should be put in accelerated classes by evaluating their school work and getting input from their teachers.”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“Additionally, with no federal money, and few states providing an adequate funding stream, most gifted education programs and services are dependent solely on local funds and parent demand.”— Myths About Gifted Students

“There were no rallies when Massachusetts eliminated its 1989 allocation--a modest $900,000--for grants supporting gifted education, an appropriation for which backers had fought for several years. One quarter of the state’s gifted programs were wiped out completely.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“there is the tendency of school districts across the country to rely almost exclusively on outdated archetypes weighted heavily on culturally biased standardized intelligence tests and subjective teacher nominations (Valdés, 2003; Valencia, 2010; Valencia & Suzuki, 2001).”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“Though the Office for Civil Rights ordered the district to hire a consultant to fix this, segregation remains an ongoing challenge.”— The Other Segregation

“The Carter-era settlement also gave a boost to those with “oral Spanish language proficiency and/or the requisite knowledge of Hispanic culture,” while not even mentioning any racial groups except blacks and Hispanics.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“a new federal civil rights complaint says the school is essentially shutting out minority students.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“The Supreme Court has banned colleges from using race as admission criteria, essentially ending affirmative action.”— Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Diversity Efforts at Top High School

“In 1990, OPM tried another test... As a result, OPM began using solely the self-rating section.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“a new federal civil rights complaint says the school is essentially shutting out minority students.”— Civil rights complaint filed against one of America’s top high schools | CNN

“These competencies must be integrated into teacher education programs by 2025 and into school districts’ in-service teacher professional development by 2024, as stipulated by Pennsylvania’s State Board of Education and Department of Education.”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“Shared within this site are original and revised course syllabi and program element documents”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“Do hate crimes suddenly not matter when the victims are white?”— In Philadelphia, the majority of hate crime victims were white people

“Wolfe describes one mau-mauer who would show up at the offices and hand over icepicks, switchblades and straight razors that he said were taken from gangs, in exchange for payments from the program.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple did so a few months after”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“Intel execs, who’ve met with Jackson several times over the past year, credit him with helping inspire the company to pledge an unprecedented $300 million to make its workforce more diverse. Apple, after a series of private meetings with Jackson, agreed to donate $40 million to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“The Education Department's civil rights office willl determine whether there's enough evidence here to warrant a full investigation. The office has the power to withhold federal funds from schools that refuse to correct civil rights violations.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

“People of Color Don’t Find Most Microaggressions Offensive.”— The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America

“Universal screening produced a 180 percent increase in the gifted assignment rate among all students who qualified for subsidized meals, a 130 percent increase among Latinos, and an 80 percent increase among blacks”— Inequality at the Starting Line: Underrepresentation in Gifted Identification

Harm Caused

Underrepresentation in gifted programs was said to deprive qualified Black and Latino students of advanced learning opportunities, higher achievement, self-efficacy, and rigorous curricula that could improve long-term prospects. Researchers documented that marginalized students faced greater risks of underachievement, dropping out, and even incarceration, with some studies finding 15 percent of incarcerated youth scoring in the top 3 percent on IQ measures. These losses compounded community-wide inequities and widened racial achievement gaps as privileged students advanced while others lagged. The assumption that districts could easily fix the problem through better identification led to policies that sometimes disrupted programs serving high-ability students of all backgrounds. ^[4][7][9]

Academically advanced students denied access to gifted services often experienced boredom, frustration, behavior problems, and unhealthy work habits that contributed to underachievement and dropout. Up to half of gifted students were estimated to underachieve significantly, with profoundly gifted children facing social isolation, mockery, and suggestions of medication for their restlessness. In Chicago, 25 percent of dropouts had ranked in the top quarter academically before leaving school. The neglect of these students was contrasted with far higher spending on learning disabilities programs. ^[11][16]

Policies based on the assumption produced unintended harms such as reduced Asian American enrollment at selective schools like Thomas Jefferson, where high-achieving applicants were disadvantaged by new quotas. Federal hiring under the Luevano Consent Decree relied on self-ratings that failed to predict performance, leading to dissatisfaction with candidate quality and a workforce whose composition no longer aligned with the original equity rationale. Resources were diverted to consultants, summer programs, and equity initiatives based on complaints that treated demographic imbalances as proof of discrimination. Critics argue these efforts sometimes prioritized racial balancing over competence and excellence. ^[19][21][28]

▶ Supporting Quotes (34)

“Steven Pinker says that racial differences in IQ are an "intellectually minor topic," but ignorance of the subject causes no end of incompetence in education.”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“Thirteen regular elementary schools in the District had no gifted children in third grade in 2004 or 2005, but the gifted rate was nearly 10% at the 13 schools with the lowest fraction of FRL students.”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“The distribution of IQ scores for the newly identified students was similar to the distribution for those identified under the old system, particularly among students who qualified under the Plan B eligibility standard. The newly identified group included many students with IQs well above the minimum eligibility threshold”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“The evidence indicates that students from marginalized groups are deprived of equal opportunities that could enhance their learning and future.”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“As teachers try to build inclusive classrooms but are constrained by biased identification methods and unfair resource allocation, these discrepancies harm not just individual students but also teacher morale and the teaching profession (Peters, 2022).”— Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusion

“If students from historically marginalized groups are not being identified as gifted at equitable rates, they are deprived of educational opportunities that directly contribute to personal, academic, and professional success.”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“if academically advanced students do not have access to an appropriately rigorous education, they and often underachieve and fail to fulfill their potential (Ford & King, 2014b; Ricciardi et al., 2020).”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“disproportionality is a problem when it stigmatizes or otherwise identifies a student as inferior, results in lowered expectations, and leads to poor educational outcomes such as dropping out, failure to receive a meaningful diploma, or diminished chances of moving to productive postschool endeavors.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“The same program that can separate disadvantaged students from their peers, distinguish them with a stigmatizing label, and subject them to a curriculum of low expectations can also provide additional resources, supports, and services without which they cannot benefit from education.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“CLD gifted students are at a greater risk for underachievement, dropping out of school, and incarceration. ... “15 percent of incarcerated youth tested in the top 3 percentile on standardized intelligence scales” (Silverman, 2004, p.1).”— Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Students

“Due to this systematic exclusion of minority students, gifted programs may exacerbate the racial achievement gap by further boosting outcomes for more privileged students while their minority peers continue to lag behind.”— Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

“For instance, even in racially diverse schools, many students of color are less likely identified to be in an advanced class, Hengtgen said. That is often due to systems where students can only take AP classes through teacher recommendations, which can replicate racial biases, or through a single state standardized test score which may not fully reflect a student’s readiness for an AP course.”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“In their book Genius Denied: How to stop wasting our brightest young minds, the Davidsons repeatedly reel off the horrific stories of discrimination faced by profoundly gifted youngsters and their parents: Every day we hear tales of their troubles. One teenage girl tells of being mocked as a “rocket scientist” by a teacher trying to gain rapport with a class. A mother is told to put her child on Ritalin to drug the boredom away. An eager, extroverted six-year-old girl has to be dragged to school because she dreads the dull hours so much. A seventh grade boy learns algebra over the summer, but has to repeat the class in eighth grade because his school can’t be bothered with accommodating his new knowledge. Schools label some gifted children as dull troublemakers because they refuse to do meaningless work. Others simply endure social isolation for speaking differently and caring about things different from other children their age.”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“Chicago’s teachers union would prefer their students to be universally immiserated than for the most capable to be able to rise above their peers. Equality over excellence.”— What Ayn Rand got right about the left

“Marcia Benjamin-Charles... said she fears de Blasio’s move will result in an exodus of bright students to charter schools. “I’m African American, and a lot of African American children are going to charter schools now,””— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“The move also puts de Blasio’s likely successor, Eric Adams, in a bind... “Eric will assess the plan and reserves his right to implement policies based on the needs of students and parents, should he become mayor,””— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“Their resulting boredom and frustration can lead to low achievement, despondency, or unhealthy work habits.”— Myths About Gifted Students

“However, many of these students are denied the opportunity to maximize their potential because of the way in which programs and services are funded, and/or flawed identification practices.”— Myths About Gifted Students

“In a study of dropouts in Chicago, the anthropologist Margaret LeCompte found that 25 percent ranked in the top quarter of their classes in reading and math scores; some were in the top 5 percent.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“It is alarming to note that, for the third consecutive year, Americans are a minority in domestic doctoral programs in mathematics. By contrast, of the 1,000 doctorates in mathematics awarded 15 years ago, 75 percent went to U.S. citizens. Twenty years ago, 86 percent of all patents in the United States went to American inventors; now, only 46 percent do.”— Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)

“there are problems defining, identifying, and serving the gifted and talented (GT) triggering stark underrepresentation of minoritzed1 children and youth in gifted programs and advanced placement coursework (Oakes, 2005; Valdés, 2003; Valencia, 2010; Valencia & Suzuki, 2001).”— Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United States

“in which students of color get sorted out of educational opportunities and long-term socioeconomic success.”— The Other Segregation

““By relying solely on self-assessments of ‘life and work experience and training,’ the rating schedule struggles to distinguish between entry-level candidates... many agencies have expressed ‘dissatisfaction with the quality of candidates referred by OPM from this rating schedule.’... A Daily Wire analysis of OPM data showed that blacks are over-represented in the federal workforce, not under-represented”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

““By relying solely on self-assessments of ‘life and work experience and training,’ the rating schedule struggles to distinguish between entry-level candidates... many agencies have expressed ‘dissatisfaction with the quality of candidates referred by OPM from this rating schedule.’"”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“even though the Merit Systems Protection Board found that is “far less able to predict future performance.””— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“(The materials included in this repository are the intellectual property of the faculty contributors and may not, at this time, have institutional approval for inclusion within program curricula.)”— PEDC | CRSE Repository

“Some college administrations and boards may not wait for state laws to eradicate DEI programs in schools, and could defund them under pressure. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for example, is proposing to eliminate positions and restructure its DEI office.”— Anti-DEI bills targeting colleges have surged since 2021

“Joseph Messina walked outside his house and saw a racial slur spray-painted on his South Philadelphia home. “SNITCHIN A** DIE CRACKER”... stop exploiting hate crimes against nonwhite people for political gain.”— In Philadelphia, the majority of hate crime victims were white people

“Much of the money of these programs was not reaching its intended recipients, rendering the programs largely ineffective.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“the median net worth of white families was 13 times that of black families ($142,000 versus $11,000)—up from six times in 2000. African Americans also had twice the unemployment (13.4 percent)”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“Since 2000, the Bay Area’s black population has declined by 6 percent overall, and by 23 and 31 percent, respectively, in the historically black cities of Oakland and East Palo Alto.”— Jesse Jackson Is Taking on Silicon Valley’s Epic Diversity Problem

“"In addition to focusing on early education, we've also put more money into summer school and interventions throughout the year to help struggling students," he said.”— Discrimination Complaint Against Virginia High School

“Telling a racial minority: “You are so articulate.” Black: 56%; Latino: 63%”— The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America

“Between 50% and 100% of gifted identification disparities could be explained by student-level differences in early academic achievement”— Inequality at the Starting Line: Underrepresentation in Gifted Identification

Downfall

Accumulated IQ test data across generations showed stable group differences that predicted gifted identification rates, exposing limits to the assumption that disparities were primarily caused by fixable systemic flaws. Owen Thompson's analysis of nearly all U.S. elementary schools using Civil Rights Data Collection found that gifted programs produced little measurable change in segregation indices and no significant shifts in overall enrollment patterns when programs started or ended. These findings challenged the narrative that such programs were major drivers of racial separation. Mounting evidence suggests the patterns reflect real differences in the distribution of high-level skills rather than solely bias in referrals or tests. ^[1][5]

The Florida district's universal screening gains proved temporary; after suspension in 2010 due to recession cuts, third-grade gifted rates returned to 2004-2005 baselines by 2011 while comparison districts saw gradual increases. Civil Rights Data Collection from 2011 to 2018 showed Black students becoming even less likely to participate relative to White students despite equity interventions. Longitudinal trends questioned whether the underrepresentation was as malleable as proponents claimed. Significant evidence challenges the idea that simple policy tweaks can fully close the gaps. ^[2][4]

Legal challenges to race-conscious or proxy policies in selective admissions gained traction, with the Fourth Circuit ruling that Fairfax County's changes at Thomas Jefferson High School likely violated equal protection by discriminating against Asian Americans. The Trump administration moved to dissolve the Luevano Consent Decree, arguing that its race-based preferences conflicted with Supreme Court decisions like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Proposals to limit DEI and related equity mandates appeared in 21 states since 2021, with several enacting restrictions. These developments reflect growing questions about whether treating demographic imbalances as proof of discrimination produces sustainable or fair outcomes. ^[19][21][24]

▶ Supporting Quotes (19)

“It’s almost as if we have tests for these questions, and vast amounts of data have been published over the generations.”— The Race War Over Giftedness

“By 2011, the gifted share of third graders had returned to the level of 2004–2005.”— Universal screening increases the representation of low-income and minority students in gifted education

“the analysis also revealed that Black students have become even less likely to participate than their White peers since 2011.”— BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMS

“I conclude that gifted & talented education is a quantitatively small contributor to racial segregation in US elementary schools.”— Gifted & Talented Programs and Racial Segregation

“Since publication of that report, there has been a dramatic reduction in the rate at which children are classified by the public schools as mentally retarded (MacMillan et al., 1996d). Most children receiving services are currently labeled “learning disabled,” a category that has in recent years accounted for over 50 percent of all children served under IDEA.”— 1 The Context of Special and Gifted Education

“Over the years, the College Board has found that Hispanic students saw the biggest growth in participation in AP programs nationally since 2013 (17 percent in 2023, up from 13 percent). However, they still lag behind other groups, such as their white and Asian peers (who have 19 percent and 47 percent participation rates in 2023, respectively).”— Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doing

“gifted scholars have long written about an ‘epidemic’ of gifted underachievement [...] Yet as Professor Ellen Winner noted in her 1996 book, Gifted Children: Myths and Realities, scrapping gifted programme”— How about a Genius Basic Income?

“"Though we support several aspects of Brilliant NYC... we are not confident that accelerated learning by itself will meet the needs of our gifted learners equally," Lauri Kirsch... said. "Moving forward, I’m hopeful that the mayor and New York City Department of Education will reconsider this plan...”— N.Y.C. public schools phasing out gifted and talented programs

“73% of teachers agreed that “Too often, the brightest students are bored and under-challenged in school–we’re not giving them a sufficient chance to thrive.””— Myths About Gifted Students

“Studies have shown that many students are happier with older students who share their interest than they are with children the same age.”— Myths About Gifted Students

“the Trump administration will tell the D.C. federal court... The motion says that the decree “blatantly conflicts with current law” because it “requires the federal government to make hiring decisions using explicit racial classification” and “this kind of blatant racial favoritism is not permitted under current Supreme Court precedent.” It cites a string of cases, including the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case that ended affirmative action.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“Reversed and remanded by published opinion.”— Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board

“that conservative activists argue are illegally designed to increase Black and Hispanic enrollment.”— Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Diversity Efforts at Top High School

“It cites a string of cases, including the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case that ended affirmative action.”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“the Trump administration is set to ask a Washington, D.C., court to dissolve the 40-year ban, arguing that it illegally puts race over merit when it comes to federal hiring”— Feds Can’t Hire For Competence Because Jimmy Carter Said It Was Racist. Trump Wants To Fix That.

“Proposals aimed at dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs on college campuses have been introduced in 21 states since 2021 — and nine of the states have approved such laws, an Axios analysis finds.”— Anti-DEI bills targeting colleges have surged since 2021

“white people were more often the victims of hate crimes than any other racial group each year between 2017 and 2020... white people are a minority in the city — 41.4% of the city’s population is black, while 39.3% is white.”— In Philadelphia, the majority of hate crime victims were white people

“Wolfe's satire is implicitly a criticism of the general phenomenon of white guilt and armchair agitation becoming facets of high fashion.”— Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers - Wikipedia

“Saying “I don’t notice people’s race.” Black: 71%; Latino: 80%”— The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America

Sources

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Steve Sailer · Steve Sailer · 2025-11-11
[2]
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David Card, Laura Giuliano · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2016-11-15
[3]
Rethinking Gifted Programs: A Critical Analysis of Equity and Inclusionunverified
Isabelle Pelle · California State University, Chico · 2024-12-18
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BLACK MINDS MATTER: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE PERSISTENT UNDERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK STUDENTS IN GIFTED EDUCATION PROGRAMSpeer_reviewed
Ashley S. Flynn · Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research · 2023
[5]
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Owen Thompson · NBER Working Paper No. 29546 · 2021-12
[6]
1 The Context of Special and Gifted Educationprimary_source
National Research Council · National Academies Press · 2002
[7]
Referral, Identification, and Retention of Underrepresented Gifted Studentspeer_reviewed
Saana Hemingway · International Journal for Talent Development and Creativity · 2022-08
[8]
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[10]
Equitable Access to AP Courses: How Each State Is Doingreputable_journalism
Ileana Najarro, Gina Tomko · Education Week · 2024-08-22
[11]
How about a Genius Basic Income?opinion
Matthew Archer · Aporia Magazine · 2024-04-16
[12]
What Ayn Rand got right about the leftopinion
John McLaughlin · Aporia Magazine · 2024-04-10
[13]
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Jean Lee and Corky Siemaszko · NBC News · 2021-10-08
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High Achieving Students in the Era of NCLBprimary_source
Farkas, S. & Duffet, A. · Thomas B. Fordham Institute · 2008
[16]
Programs for The Gifted Are Not 'Elitist' (Opinion)opinion
Linda A. Tammi · Education Week · 1990-02-14
[17]
Giftedness as Property: Troubling Whiteness, Wealth, and Gifted Education in the United Statespeer_reviewed
Katherine Cumings Mansfield · International Journal of Multicultural Education · 2015
[18]
The Other Segregationopinion
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[19]
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[20]
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[22]
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ID: FA-20260210-0b1d6687 · Created: 2026-02-10T19:44:14.782590 · Schema v3