Blaine On Trial

Blaine On Trial
Gerald J. Russello
National Catholic Register
April 6-12, 2008 Issue

Ever hear of the Blaine amendment? It’s sort of obscure, but it remains one of the last remnants of bigotry in the statute books. Some court cases are finally beginning to tackle this shameful legacy.

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In 1998, New York enacted a charter school law, which enables the state to provide funding for private or independent schools. These schools are usually in areas where the public schools are failing, and would give poorer families a chance at shaping their children’s education.

New Horizons Church Ministry is a Baptist congregation in New York City’s Harlem, and applied for a charter school license under the law.

But the law establishing the charter school program provides — following New York’s Blaine amendment — that support should be refused to any school “wholly or in part under the control of direction of any religions denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine would be taught.”

New Horizons was refused funding by the state because it proposed to establish a school in keeping with its religious principles.

Late last year, the pastor of New Horizons sued the state seeking a court to declare the prohibition of funding religious schools in the charter school law and New York’s Blaine amendment as a whole unconstitutional under the federal Constitution.

The case is now making its way through the court system, and is one of a number of challenges to state-level Blaine amendments.

The New Horizons case should be of considerable interest to all those interested in religious education, but specifically in Catholic education. While the development of parochial schools developed independently of public schools, there is no reason why Blaine amendments should block Catholic schools from accepting funds pursuant to a state charter school program.

Indeed, in poorer neighborhoods, the need for such schools is greater than ever, and eliminating Blaine amendments would enable religious schools of all types to have a chance to succeed and help their communities. And Catholics should have a particular desire to see these legal remnants of anti-Catholic discrimination erased from the statute books.

In other words, it is time for the bigoted heritage of the Blaine amendments to pass into history.


Click here for the original article.

A ghost of 19th-century bigotry haunts New York City

By GEORGE F. WILL
The Washington Post

HARLEM (or maybe not) — Asked whether his brownstone residence is in Harlem, the Rev. Michel Faulkner says, well, that depends. "When something bad happens, the neighborhood is called Harlem. When something good happens, it is the Upper West Side." Faulkner is trying to make something good happen, but is opposed by a U.S. speaker of the House who died 114 years ago but whose mischief goes marching on.

Faulkner, 50, is an African-American who played defensive line for Virginia Tech and, briefly, the New York Jets. Recoiling from what he calls "the social and community chaos" he saw growing up in Washington's Anacostia section, and that he blamed on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfarism, Faulkner served as vice president for urban ministry at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He left that sedate environment to minister to the down-and-out around Times Square, before its sinfulness had been scrubbed away.

Link to the full article

Fighting History In Harlem

George F. Will
Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A29
Washington Post

Faulkner, 50, is an African American who played defensive line for Virginia Tech and, briefly, the New York Jets. Recoiling from what he calls "the social and community chaos" that he saw growing up in Anacostia, and that he blamed on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfarism, Faulkner served as vice president for urban ministry at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He left that sedate environment to minister to the down-and-out around Times Square, before its sinfulness had been scrubbed away.

Now he wants to create a charter school -- a public school enjoying considerable autonomy from, among other burdens, teachers unions. It would be affiliated with his New Horizon Church. But New York's constitution has a Blaine Amendment.


Link to the original article

Faulkner's First Stop

New York Sun Editorial

Quite the important case was filed in federal district court in Manhattan last week. A former New York Jet with a masters degree in education who is also pastor of Harlem's New Horizons
Church, Rev. Michael Faulkner, wants to open up a charter school in Harlem or Washington Heights that would be affiliated with his church but would not have a religious component to the curriculum. However, the New York Charter Schools Act explicitly states that "A Charter shall not be issued to any school that would be wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine would be taught."

Mr. Faulkner, with the help of the Gotham Legal Foundation, is suing to have that section of the law changed under the theory that it is in violation of his rights under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause as well as the Fourteenth Amendment.

Link to the original article.

Arabic school causes stir in NYC

From The Jerusalem Post

A coalition opposed to a new Arabic-language school in the city has filed a lawsuit against the New York City Department of Education.

Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition is attempting to shut down the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, which opened this fall under intense scrutiny.

The coalition is taking its case to the New York Supreme Court following a Freedom of Information Law request. It claims the Department of Education failed to provide sufficient information about the charter school's curriculum and text books.

Link to the original article.

Note: The Khalil Gibran International Academy is not a charter school.