This Brooklyn teen keeps pressing de Blasio on school segregation during his weekly radio appearance
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, has refused to meet with her. He has told her she isn’t “hearing what we’re saying to you.” And he has scoffed at her criticism that his bid for president is a distraction from addressing systemic issues facing the nation’s largest school system.
That thorn in de Blasio’s side: Tiffani Torres, a 16-year-old junior at Pace High School in Manhattan, who has twice appeared on the “Ask the Mayor” call-in segment of WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.”
Torres lives in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and is an activist with Teens Take Charge, a group that advocates for integrating the city’s public schools, which are among the most segregated in the country. Since taking office in 2014, de Blasio has shied away from the issue, and until recently has virtually refused to use the words “integration” or “segregation.” He has insisted that “diversity” efforts should come from local communities, rather than top-down from City Hall.