c. 1997 Religion News Service
High Court reverses on aid to parochial schools
(RNS) The Supreme Court, overturning a decision it rendered in 1985, said Monday (June 23) it is constitutionally permissible for public school teachers to offer remedial aid at church-run schools.
In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the court said that “a federally funded program providing supplemental remedial instruction to disadvantaged children on a neutral basis is not invalid.”
O’Connor’s opinion stated the program did not run afoul of the court’s three-pronged test for judging whether government programs advance religion. She said it did not result in government indoctrination, did not define recipients by reference to religion or create an excessive entanglement between religion and government.
The ruling overturned a 1985 decision by the court, called Aguilar vs. Felton, in which it ruled that while public school teachers could help parochial school students under a federal remedial aid program, they were barred from teaching inside religiously affiliated school because it would excessively entangle religion and government.
Since that ruling, remedial aid has been offered in vans parked outside parochial schools. New York state has estimated the extra costs associated with the strict separation has cost it $100 million since 1985.
Questions have been raised about the wisdom of the 1985 ruling in recent years by five of the justices Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and O’Connor who made up the majority in Monday’s ruling.
The four dissenters Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Paul Stevens accused the majority of abandoning the “non-agenda-setting character of this court,” suggesting the High Court was responding to outside pressures rather than law.
The reversal was also criticized by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based public policy organization.
“This decision creates a major crack in the wall of separation between church and state,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the group. Lynn said the ruling was “a disappointment” but said it would be wrong to “read it as a blanket approval for government aid to religious schools. The court conceded that church-state safeguards are still essential.”
But U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley was pleased with the court’s action.
“I believe that this decision is a positive step forward for American education and good for the many children who need help in learning the basics of reading and math,” he said. “The department will issue guidance regarding implementation of the decision.”
Students charge Denver theology school with “institutional racism”
(RNS) Officials at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver have reached an agreement with students protesting what they call “authoritarian leadership and institutional racism” at the United Methodist-related school.
The agreement, which has not yet been approved by the theological school’s trustee board, would prompt continued mediation and the establishment of a “Board of Diversity.” The new board would include students, faculty, staff and administrative representatives, who would prepare a job description by January 1998 for a yet-to-be-named senior administrator of color.
The trustee board is scheduled to meet Tuesday (June 24) and is likely to consider the matter at that time.
Donald Messer, Iliff president, called the agreement a “positive move to deal with the differences,” the United Methodist News Service reported.
Amy Wake, a spokeswoman for the protesters and a third-year master of divinity student, said, “We feel hopeful that the board of trustees will affirm the positive direction in which we have begun to move.”
Five students protesting what they considered the school administration’s lack of diversity had participated in a fast and hunger strike since May 14, when they were charged with trespassing by Denver police for remaining in the chapel after the normal closing hour of 10 p.m. They ended the protest after the agreement was reached June 17.
Students have challenged the school’s commitment to gender, cultural and ethnic diversity and criticized Messer for not hiring a senior administrator of color during his 16 years as Iliff’s president.
Iliff has 17 full-time faculty members, including three people of color. There are four white administrators, three of whom teach part-time. The school has 343 students.
Messer said the school is inviting women of color to fill two faculty vacancies and a theologian from Zimbabwe has been hired for five years as visiting assistant professor of theology and social theory.
Texas bans its agencies from investing in gangsta rap distributors
(RNS) In an attack on gangsta rap, Texas has become the first state to ban its agencies from investing in companies that distribute music with lyrics that are sexually explicit or exalt violence.
The law was passed in the form of a rider at the end of the state’s 900-page budget, which was signed Friday (June 20) by Gov. George W. Bush Jr.
Similar legislation has been proposed during the past year in other states, including Maryland and Pennsylvania, but has not been approved.
The Texas rider bans the use of state money to invest in any company that owns 10 percent or more of a business that receives income from music that details or supports violence, degradation of women, illegal drug use, assault of police officers, pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality or criminal street gangs, The New York Times reported.
Free-speech advocates and record industry officials were among those who attacked the law.
Cary Sherman, a vice president and general counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America, said his organization plans to challenge the action for constitutional reasons.
“We think that the motivation here was gangsta rap, but the legislation could impact everything: country, rock, jazz, anything with words. We sent the governor a letter saying it could include things like Ray Charles’ `Let’s Go Get Stoned’ and Bob Marley’s `I Shot the Sheriff.”’
Many Texas funds have significant investments in companies such as Seagram, which has an 80 percent stake in albums by Marilyn Manson, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Doggy Dogg. The Permanent School Fund has $3.5 million of its $14 billion in Seagram stock; the Employees Retirement System has invested more than $8 million in Seagram; and the University of Texas has invested nearly $4 million in the company.
Pension fund officers are unsure how they will determine which companies distribute objectionable songs.
“I’m not sure what the immediate impact of this will be,” said Larry Keith, president of the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters. “I personally believe that funds should be invested in whatever makes money.”
Christian Reformed Church rejects calling God “mother”
(RNS) Delegates to the Christian Reformed Church’s synod its highest decision-making body have adopted a set of recommendations ruling out the use of inclusive language for God and saying God cannot be called “mother” or “she.”
“The endorsement or use of contemporary inclusive language for God (is) unacceptable in the Christian Reformed Church,” the delegates said.
The 285,000-member denomination’s synod met June 14-21 in Grand Rapids, Mich., with gender-related issues dominating the sessions.
In addition to the inclusive language question, delegates at the synod also refused to allow opponents of women’s ordination to establish their own classes, or local jurisdictions, that would have been based on shared opposition to women pastors rather than geography.
And the delegates also refused to call Hessel Bouma, a biology professor at the denomination’s Calvin College in Grand Rapids, to account for his view on abortion. Bouma holds that abortion “is not the moral equivalent of murder.”
The synod also rejected a proposal to set up a committee to produce biblical grounds for the denomination’s position that abortion is unacceptable except to save a woman’s life.
Delegates did, however, approve sending a letter to President Clinton and members of Congress “lamenting the presidential veto” of the ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure and calling on the government to enact legislation that would protect “the unique value of all human life” and prohibit “the wanton or arbitrary destruction of any human being at any state in its development.”
Quote of the day: Dr. Thomas Reardon, vice chairman of the American Medical Association board of trustees
(RNS) On Sunday (June 22), the American Medical Association (AMA) announced two initiatives designed to keep physicians out of the controversy surrounding euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. According to the AMA, euthanasia would be less of an issue if health care were better. Said Dr. Thomas Reardon, vice chairman of the AMA board of trustees:
“The AMA firmly believes that if end-of-life care was of the highest possible quality, the call for physician-assisted suicide would be drastically reduced, if not eliminated.”
MJP END RNS
