New York City is one of the most opportunity-rich places on earth. It has attracted generations of immigrants of every race and creed, often arriving with little more than a suitcase and the firm belief that their hard work and determination would be rewarded.<\/p>\n
Yet Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s newly released Preliminary Citywide Racial Equity Plan<\/a>\u2014a 375-page monument to grievance politics and DEI\u2014treats this urban engine of opportunity as a machine of oppression, in which \u201csystemic racism\u201d explains every gap in wealth, health, and achievement.<\/p>\n Finally, a reason to check your email.<\/p>\n Sign up for our free newsletter today.<\/p>\n Released to great fanfare alongside a True Cost of Living<\/a> report that dutifully slices data by race, Mamdani\u2019s equity plan orders 45 agencies to view every budget line, hiring decision, and service through a \u201cracial equity lens.\u201d<\/p>\n The result? More than 800 strategies and 600 indicators across seven domains\u2014including economy, housing, education, and safety\u2014that clothe institutionalized racial preferences in the garb of justice and will cost the city untold millions of dollars.<\/p>\n The \u201cmissions and commitments\u201d of city agencies are described with terms like diversity<\/a>, equity<\/a>, inclusion<\/a> (listed separately so that the plan cannot be labeled DEI<\/a> or critical theory<\/a>), systemic disparity, racism, racial inequities, representation, discrimination, bias, segregation, and marginal. The agencies\u2019 goals are to reinterpret their histories as structurally biased, to conduct extensive anti-bias trainings, to disaggregate data until disparities are all but guaranteed to appear, and then to align spending and policy decisions with predetermined equity targets, such as in hiring or minority- or women-owned business enterprise (M\/WBE) procurement requirements.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s equity plan is not the product of neutral analysis. It is a framework that presumes its conclusions and then operationalizes them. The result will be a city government less flexible and empirically oriented, one virtually obligated to see every outcome and process from a racial perspective.<\/p>\n Searching keyword frequency offers insight into the plan\u2019s identity hierarchy: \u201crace,\u201d including its variants \u201cracist,\u201d \u201cracial,\u201d and \u201cracism,\u201d appears 751 times. \u201cBlack\u201d appears 189 times, \u201cLatin\u201d and \u201cHispanic\u201d 97 times, \u201ccolor\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d 49, \u201cAsian\u201d 27, and \u201cJew\u201d or \u201cJewish\u201d just once.<\/p>\n In a sweeping, discrimination-obsessed government plan, a single, cursory mention of the group most disproportionately affected by bias attacks is striking. Jews have made up the largest share of hate-crime victims<\/a> in New York City since 2000, when systematic tracking began. In recent years, even amid waves of attacks against Asians<\/a>, attacks on Jews accounted for more than half of all hate-crime incidents<\/a> (57 percent last year)\u2014far in excess of the Jewish proportion of New York City residents.<\/p>\n The word \u201cmerit<\/a>\u201d also gets but a single mention in the equity plan, relating to the New York State Civil Service Law requirement that candidates take a test to determine their qualifications for many jobs. The plan notes that this requirement reduced some groups\u2019 \u201crepresentation<\/a>\u201d in various positions. This suggests Mamdani\u2019s readiness to favor identity-based characteristics over individual merit in civil service hiring. Dumbing down the test, for example, would align with the plan\u2019s stated aim to produce equal employment outcomes across identity groups, reducing \u201cgaps\u201d without regard to actual performance in order to reach the goal of \u201cequitable hiring.\u201d<\/p>\n This approach would undermine the very systems that once drove the city\u2019s growth. Past attempts to convert screened schools and specialized high schools into racial spoils systems\u2014to the particular disadvantage of high-achieving Asian students\u2014illustrate the pattern. Asian households have closed wealth gaps faster than any other group despite facing discrimination in admissions, contracting, and lending. The equity plan attributes this performance solely to \u201cstructural\u201d barriers while downplaying culture, family structure, two-parent households, and emphasis on education.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s plan may come under legal challenge. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon has said<\/a> that it \u201csounds fishy\/illegal.\u201d Defenders of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment<\/a>, Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964<\/a>, and 42 U.S.C.\u00a7 1981<\/a> will take particular note. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard<\/a> (2023), the Supreme Court established that any governmental use of race as a classification must pass the high bar of strict scrutiny, serve a compelling interest, be narrowly tailored, and use race only as a last resort, without quotas or racial balancing. The equity plan\u2019s oft-repeated goal of reaching 30 percent M\/BWE utilization is certainly suspect: in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co.<\/a> (1989), the Supreme Court overruled Richmond\u2019s 30 percent minority set-aside. InAdarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pe\u00f1a<\/a> (1995), the Court ruled that government racial classifications must pass strict scrutiny.<\/p>\n Racial equity plans don\u2019t build generational wealth\u2014they redistribute resentment. They don\u2019t heal historical wounds\u2014they reopen them for political profit. Mayor Mamdani has given us a 375-page exhibit demonstrating that his administration sees New Yorkers as racial blocs to be managed, not individual citizens to be served.<\/p>\n The plan invites public feedback through May 6. All New Yorkers who believe in individual dignity over group grievance should respond. They should demand color-blind policies that judge people by character and conduct, not their Census category; schools that teach reading and math to every kid and don\u2019t hold back high achievers; contracts that get awarded to those making the best bids, not those with the \u201cright\u201d skin tone; and policies that promote public safety free of racial scorekeeping. New York should reclaim the original meaning of \u201caffirmative action<\/a>,\u201d as used in President John F. Kennedy\u2019s Executive Order 10925<\/a>: \u201cequal opportunity for all qualified persons, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.\u201d<\/p>\n New York City\u2019s greatness, like America\u2019s, was built by strivers who insisted on being measured by their achievements, not their ancestry. The Mamdani administration wants to undo that equation in New York. We shouldn\u2019t let it happen.<\/p>\n