Ms. Rahman grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and graduated from Binghamton University. She thinks the mayor’s plan is a “first but limited step” toward integration.

“We used to joke that whoever had the most money to spend on test prep would probably go to Stuyvesant.” That was how Ms. Rahman was introduced to the specialized school debate as a young Bangladeshi immigrant living in Brooklyn.

In high school, she came to believe that the admissions process was about money, not merit. Now, she said, “I feel like that system shouldn’t really exist.”

That was partially because of how the high-stakes culture affected students. Ms. Rahman, who graduated high school in 2010, remembered that a boy in her year almost drowned in the school’s swimming pool after staying up all night to study.

Ms. Rahman said she was sympathetic to the Asian-American families who want to keep the test — to a point.

“I understand for them they feel they have little social capital in this country, one of the few things they have is being taken away,” she said.

“But one thing I can’t accept is when they say things like, ‘Our kids have worked hard. We deserve this.’ The unspoken thing is that other kids in other families don’t deserve this.”