I'm not touching on the merits or demerits of Zohran Mamdani. Just that this is a bit of an issue. Bit doing some heavy lifting.
It's intriguing to me for a couple of reasons. While I am now fully of the mind that programs that advantage minorities are justified, affirmative action in the employment and education admissions contexts have often troubled me, because it comes closer to a zero-sum game than most other contexts. And when you get to problematic attempts to "game the system" (if in fact that's what this is, you can have an interesting argument on that point alone) like this, the problem is underscored.
The other thing here is suppressing factual information because it is a) disadvantageous and b) comes from an extremely distasteful source is extremely problematic. Another sticky wicket in the First Amendment/Free Expression argument. Although I submit it's not really a sticky wicket at all. To the extent truthiness can be determined, let it out.
So, I can't disagree with NYTs decision to report this, but how they reported it may be a different matter. Funny thing, this factual reporting but with a tinge or spin on some related or background issue is what conservatards point to as lying in the media, while conservative media abandons fact altogether.