Asian New Yorkers Upset About Mamdani’s Pledge to End Testing for Specialized High School Admission

Asian American parents and community leaders are voicing growing concern over Democrat primary winner Zohran Mamdani’s support for eliminating the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), the sole admissions criterion for New York City’s top public high schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

The SHSAT has long been defended by many Asian-American families as a fair and merit-based system that opens doors to high-quality education, particularly for low-income, immigrant families with limited access to private tutoring or elite prep schools. Currently, Asian students make up the majority of the student body at specialized high schools, a statistic that some in the community fear is being used against them.

“People ask me, why don’t you support the Democrat primary winner?” said Justin Yu, Chinatown district leader. “I say: I support Democrats. I do not support socialist Democrats or Democratic Socialists. It’s very unfortunate the Democrat Party selected the wrong candidate.”

Critics of Mamdani’s plan argue that scrapping the SHSAT would gut a rare meritocratic pathway in an otherwise inequitable school system. They believe that shifting admissions to more subjective criteria like interviews, portfolios, or middle school grades would disproportionately hurt Asian students and invite political manipulation.

Asian-American leaders across Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan are now organizing to oppose Mamdani’s education platform ahead of the general election, warning that “equity” reforms that eliminate standardized testing are thinly veiled attempts to reduce Asian representation in elite public schools.

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