Whether the deciding factor be gender (the Citadel), ethnicity (Howard University), religion (Yeshiva University), or disability (the California School for the Deaf), examples abound of schools designed to cater to a certain subset of our larger society.

But what about a gay high school?

New York City’s Harvey Milk School has been around since 1984. It’s existed for almost twenty years as a partnership between the Hetrick-Martin Institute and the NYC Department of Education that catered to the needs of at-risk lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) students. Now it’s received the NYC DOE’s blessing ($3.2 million worth, specifically) to forge ahead as a fully accredited public high school unto itself, and suddenly it’s a big enough blip to register on the national radar and garner the ensuing criticism. Detractors condemn it as anything from a waste of taxpayer dollars, to pandering towards aberrant sexual behavior, while its supporters hail it as a place where LGBT students—many of whom would otherwise drop out of school—can learn without harassment.

As a public school, the Harvey Milk School accepts applicants regardless of their sexual orientation. In this sense, it can be compared to Fisk University and any number of other historically black universities that enroll students from all over the color line spectrum. The Harvey Milk School adheres to the same curriculum and graduation standards as any other public high school in NYC, so fear of a gay agenda isn’t a very valid gripe. Similarly, those who fear homosexuals themselves will find little about the Harvey Milk School to keep them awake at night. By its own projections, the school will only service 170 students this school year—just 1.7% of NYC’s LGBT population, and a trifling 0.17% of the city’s overall high-school population. Fourteen dozen teenagers shall not a queer horde make. Those crying segregation haven’t a leg to stand on, either, as students attend the Harvey Milk School of their own free will—which was never a cornerstone of pre-1960s segregated schooling. And the school has existed in some incarnation since the mid-1980s; unless you’re ready to categorize their prior success as 20 years of beginner’s luck, you have to concede that they must be doing something right.