DOJ Official: NYC Schools' Discrimination Against Church Breaks the Law
by Jim Brown
June 9, 2005
(AgapePress) - The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal court to bar New York City Public Schools from discriminating against religious speech. The DOJ has filed a second brief on behalf of the Bronx Household of Faith, a church that has been barred from renting school facilities on the same basis as other community groups.The Bronx church had sought to rent New York City Public School facilities after hours for the purpose of holding its worship services. However, even though secular organizations and community groups were allowed to use school facilities for a fee, the New York City Board of Education has refused to allow the Bronx Household of Faith the same access.
Eric Treene, the DOJ's Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination, says school boards, administrators and local government officials across the U.S. generally have a mindset that religion is not allowed in public places. "What they miss," he explains, "is that there is a critical distinction between [private religious expression and] government religious speech, which the constitution contains and restricts."
Obviously, a free society "can't have a government picking and choosing religions," Treene says. "But, on the other hand, it's in our greatest constitutional traditions to accommodate individual expression, even when that individual religious expression occurs in a public place."
The Justice Department official says the New York school system is ignoring the law, including a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding Good News Clubs, in which the high court declared that schools cannot lawfully discriminate against religious groups. "The Supreme Court has held time and time again," he insists, "that providing equal access for individual religious expression by students does not violate the Constitution -- that, in fact, this is constitutionally protected speech -- and that you may not discriminate against student expression simply because it's religious."
The DOJ's friend of the court brief urges the federal court to permanently bar New York Public Schools from discriminating against religious speech. Treene says a speech policy that is neutral toward religion is always safe for a public or state entity.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
