Chancellor Calls Race Quota Unnecessary

The schools chancellor, Joel Klein, yesterday signaled that he is siding with a Brooklyn family in their challenge to racial quotas now in place at a city magnet school.

At issue is the decision by I.S. 239/The Mark Twain School to deny admission to an 11-year-old girl, Nikita Rau, though her test scores are two points higher than the cutoff set for white students. Following a 1974 court order, 60% of the Coney Island middle school's seats are reserved for white students, which results in white and minority students being admitted based on different standards. The Rau family is East Indian.

"I think probably that court order is no longer necessary," Mr. Klein said at a press conference yesterday. He stopped short of taking any action, saying he will wait for a U.S. Supreme Court decision due this week.

The court is ruling on two cases challenging public schools' use of race as a factor in their admissions decisions. Like Mark Twain, these schools originally began using race as a consideration in order to desegregate schools.

How the court rules on those cases will also determine the Rau family's next move, their lawyer, Rose Marie Arnold, said. If the justices deem considerations of race unconstitutional, Ms. Arnold said she will ask the court that first handed down the decision to vacate it.

But she vowed to fight the decision even if the court defends race considerations. She said she would argue that Mark Twain's current quotas are antiquated and do not match the district's actual makeup.

A state report on the 2005–06 school year says the public school population of District 21 in southwest Brooklyn is 32% white; a department spokesman, Andrew Jacob, said the area's overall population is about 40% white.

But Mr. Jacob said the department would have to abide by the court order for now. He said the order mandates that school demographics be set according to the 1974 breakdowns.