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A school district near Olympia, Washington has decided that Asians no longer qualify as persons of color.

In their latest equity report, administrators at North Thurston Public Schools lumped Asians in with whites and measured their academic achievements against “students of color,” a category that includes “Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Multi-Racial Students” who have experienced “persistent opportunity gaps.”

Critics say that the move is a political maneuver to keep funds flowing in for minority groups based on semi-arbitrary race-based categories.

The report shows that the achievement gap between white/Asian students and “students of color” is fairly narrow and improving over time. It would be even narrower if Asian students were categorized as “students of color.”

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