898: An Argument

Episode of This American Life · September 26, 2026 · 1 h 3 min

Nikole Hannah-Jones revisits her famous essay on choosing a segregated public school for her daughter Najya, who argues with her about that choice a decade later.

Summary

Ten years after Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote a New York Times Magazine cover story urging advantaged parents to enroll their children in ordinary, segregated public schools, producer Chana Joffe-Walt recorded conversations with Hannah-Jones and her daughter Najya as Hannah-Jones prepared a follow-up article. Hannah-Jones recounted the benefits she saw in Najya's mostly Black elementary school, as well as a fourth-grade discovery that a teacher had been marking nearly all of Najya's wrong math answers as correct; she and her husband Faraji chose to stay and fight for remediation for the entire class.

Najya, now 16, told Joffe-Walt she had never read the original article and described her middle school as disorganized and undemanding, with no homework and frequent disruptions. After Najya discovered the school's low test scores and repeatedly challenged her mother, Hannah-Jones let her choose her own high school. Najya picked top-ranked, majority white and Asian schools, was admitted to her first choice, and struggled academically and socially at first, encountering white classmates using racial slurs, before settling in.

In a joint conversation, Najya argued that her mother's choice provided no benefit and set her back, while Hannah-Jones defended the moral case for integration and parental presence inside schools. In a final act, Hannah-Jones reread her old emails to Najya's elementary school, realized she had suppressed memories of the school's unresponsiveness, and apologized to her daughter. She said she no longer knew what she was arguing for, though she remained firm that what the country does to Black children is immoral.

Chapters

0:49
Prologue: the argument, ten years on
Joffe-Walt and Hannah-Jones recall the school-choice scramble among New York parents and the impact of Hannah-Jones's 2016 essay.
10:14
Act One: Nicole's choice
Hannah-Jones describes the benefits of Najya's elementary school and the fourth-grade discovery that her math work was going ungraded.
20:20
Middle school and the car confrontation
Twelve-year-old Najya confronts her mother about her middle school's low test scores.
25:57
Act Two: Najya
Najya tells Joffe-Walt she never read the article and describes her disruptive, homework-free middle school.
31:31
Act Three: Najya's choice
Hannah-Jones lets Najya pick her high school; Najya chooses top-ranked majority white schools and even announces she wants to attend Harvard.
39:16
A difficult start in high school
Najya struggles academically and socially at her new school before settling in.
42:06
Act Four: Nicole and Najya
Mother and daughter debate whether the school choices benefited anyone and agree Najya's high school choice was good for her.
51:47
Act Five: The evidence
Hannah-Jones rereads old emails, realizes how unresponsive the school was, apologizes to Najya, and reflects on what she still believes.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones said she refused to absolve parents who agreed with her argument but chose otherwise, wanting them to confront what other children deserve.
“OK, I'm not your priest. I cannot absolve you and I don't want to absolve you. I wanted you to be forced to be like, what about these kids?”
Listen from 7:25 · Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones said Najya's mostly Black elementary school spared her the feelings of inferiority Hannah-Jones experienced as a bused student.
“in her formative years, she didn't have that experience that I had of formative. feeling less than other kids, of feeling like, is there something wrong with Black people?”
Listen from 11:59 · Racial inequality in education
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones recounted discovering in fourth grade that Najya's teacher had been checking wrong math answers as correct.
“Like, he's just putting a checkmark. He's not checking her math. He's not correcting her. He's not teaching her. Every single one is wrong”
Listen from 15:40 · Parent involvement in schools
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones said she and her husband stayed at the school because they felt they could not abandon the other children.
“who are we if like the moment it gets really rough, we give up? Then what do we do it for in the first place?”
Listen from 17:50 · School choice
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones argued that equality requires personal sacrifice, citing the sacrifices of earlier generations of Black Americans.
“I believe in the concept of equality, but I can't make a personal sacrifice. We don't get there”
Listen from 23:53 · School segregation in the United States
Najya
Najya said her middle school was so undemanding that she and her friends wanted homework because they knew they were not learning enough.
“We honestly did want to get more things because we knew that we weren't learning enough. We didn't know anything”
Listen from 29:22 · New York City public schools
Najya
Najya said she concluded that getting a good education meant attending a majority white school, based on what top schools looked like.
“If you look at the top schools, they're majority white. And it's like, if you want to go into a good school, you're going to have to go to a majority white school”
Listen from 36:13 · Selective admissions in New York City schools
Najya
Najya described encountering white classmates using the N-word at her selective high school.
“I noticed that there were kids that were comfortable saying the N-word. I also experienced that. There were white kids that were saying the N-word”
Listen from 39:52 · Racial inequality in education
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones said the confidence she built in Najya as a Black girl could be destroyed within weeks at the predominantly white school.
“me trying to build my child's confidence as a Black girl and the inherent intellect and worth. And then it can be destroyed, like, in two weeks in this school”
Listen from 41:29 · Racial inequality in education
Najya
Najya argued that her mother's choice produced no benefit and challenged her to name one.
“There's no benefit that came out of you putting me in those schools. There's no benefit at all. Could you tell me a benefit?”
Listen from 47:55 · School choice
Najya
Najya said being academically behind in ninth grade made her feel like a 'dumb black girl in a white school.'
“It was like, oh my gosh, you're a dumb black girl in a white school. That's what it made me feel. Why should I have to suffer with that?”
Listen from 49:31 · Racial inequality in education
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones argued that schools cannot be changed from the outside and that her aim was to change power dynamics, not just donate money.
“I think we have decades of people saying they were going to change a school from the outside, and I just don't think you do”
Listen from 49:48 · Parent involvement in schools
Nikole Hannah-Jones
After rereading her old emails, Hannah-Jones said she had suppressed memories of the school's failures in order to live with her choices.
“I had just pushed a lot of that out of my memory, I think, to be able to live with the choices we were trying to make”
Listen from 52:31 · In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones admitted she does not know whether she and her husband made the right choice.
“I couldn't admit to her that, yes, you did bear a cause. And I don't know that we made the right choice”
Listen from 56:00 · School choice
Chana Joffe-Walt
Joffe-Walt observed that public schools remain as unequal and segregated as they were decades ago despite the sacrifices of integration advocates.
“Public schools are unequal and segregated as they were 10 years ago, 30 years ago, 60 years ago”
Listen from 56:28 · School segregation in the United States
Linked moment · 58:34Skip to 58:34 using a listen link in the info box.
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hannah-Jones said that despite her doubts, she remains unwavering that the treatment of Black children is immoral and a societal choice.
“The base of the argument... is that what we are doing to Black children is immoral. And that I am not wavered on”
Listen from 58:34 · School segregation in the United States

People

In the conversation

Chana Joffe-WaltThis American Life producer and reporter, guest-hosting the episode
Ira GlassHost and creator of This American Life
Nikole Hannah-JonesAmerican journalist and New York Times Magazine writer who teaches at Howard University
NajyaNikole Hannah-Jones's 16-year-old daughter, a high school sophomore

Discussed

Faraji Hannah-JonesNikole Hannah-Jones's husband and former co-president of Najya's elementary school PTA

Topics

From the publisher

Nikole Hannah-Jones made an argument 10 years ago in The New York Times Magazine that became famous. She wrote about choosing a public school for her daughter, Najya, in one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country: New York City. Nikole chose a regular public school, one that most wealthy and middle-class parents wouldn’t consider, and she challenged other parents to do the same. She revisits that argument, and that choice, in a series of conversations with producer Chana Joffe-Walt and with her daughter, Najya, who’s now 16 and has her own very different views. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Chana talks with Nikole about what they both remember from being young parents just starting to think about schools for their children. (9 minutes) (00:10:44) Act One: Nikole talks with Chana about Najya’s elementary school and the problems her family navigated there. (15 minutes) (00:25:00) Act Two: Chana talks with Najya about her memories of elementary and middle school and how she felt about her mom’s choices. (9 minutes) (00:31:45) Act Three: Nikole and Najya talk about what changed when Najya pushed back against her mom’s choices for elementary and middle school and got to choose her own high school. (10 minutes) (00:42:16) Act Four: Nikole and Najya talk with each other about the different choices they made and the questions they still have for each other. (9 minutes) (00:51:13) Act Five: Nikole fact-checks her memory against her old emails with Najya’s elementary school and has a painful revelation. (7 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy . / Learn more about sponsor message choices .

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 28, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: Education·Parenting·Society & Culture