Discussions of school integration often contrast the perceived deficits of segregated schools with the perceived strengths of schools with diverse student bodies. In this study, I examine the relationships that school community members infer between student demographics and school quality in diversifying areas of New York City. I use portraits of three New Yorkers to examine the ways that school community members reluctantly re-inscribe the stigma associated with segregated schools, assuming that the best way to improve a school is to increase its diversity. These braided discourses of pathology and diversity call into question the extent to which advocacy for integration advances the goals of educational justice.