I posted at 10 AM EST today about an article in the Hechinger Report, written at its request by scholars Bruce Baker and Preston Green, each of whom is an expert in his field (school finance, constitutional law and education). A reader identified with the pro-voucher Reason Institute complained that an earlier Supreme Court decision forbade private schools from practicing racial discrimination, and an editor inserted a note saying so, as if to correct Baker and Green.
Baker and Green objected that the reader was wrong. The Supreme Court case he cited—Runyon v. McCrary-did not expressly forbid racial discrimination by religious schools if based on religious grounds.
The editor at the Hechinger Report read the case in question and removed the erroneous insertion, appending this clarification at the end of the article.
*Clarification: After publication of this article, a reader noted that the Supreme Court ruling Runyon v. McCrary (1976) forbids discrimination by race in private schools. We added a parenthetical editor’s note saying that current federal law does not permit private schools to discriminate on the basis of race. This note was overly broad. The authors explained that Runyon does not expressly address sectarian schools, a subset of private schools. Indeed, the Court specifies that its ruling offers no opportunity to address “private sectarian schools that practice Racial Exclusion on religious grounds.” Although it is unlikely that parochial schools would engage in racial discrimination, Runyon does not specifically address that possibility. This clarification should have been obtained from the authors before the editor’s note was appended.
I am glad the editor made this change. I’m glad she read the case and consulted with the authors. But I’m not in agreement with her expectation that religious schools would be “unlikely” to engage in racial discrimination. It is generally acknowledged that choice policies intensify segregation of all kinds: religious, racial, and socioeconomic (although Reason and CATO and other pro-vouchers advocates don’t agree with the scholarly consensus). Among the more extreme of evangelical schools that are currently funded by states, according to a survey by Rebecca Klein of the Huffington Post, a number openly teach racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, as well as lies about science and history.
Although it is unlikely that parochial schools would engage in racial discrimination, Runyon does not specifically address that possibility. This clarification should have been obtained from the authors before the editor’s note was appended.
More than “clarification” was needed. The editors are short on knowledge of the kind summarised in Huffington Post article but quite willing to assume nothing as ugly as racial segregation ever happened in parocial schools. Give me a break. The readers of the Hechinger Report deserve more informed editors.
Private schools, in fact, are more segregated. https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-11-03/new-culprit-in-school-segregation-private-schools
In response to reports that show increasing segregation as a result of privatization, Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute for the Securing of Big Paychecks for Officers of the Fordham Institute has been writing articles, of late, about how great it is for black students to have black teachers. Segregation, you see, is a feature, not a bug, as any paid Deformer can tell you.
Fordham and the Koch -linked Manhattan Institute also praise Catholic schools.
“Growing up in private evangelical Christian schools, Bishop saw the world in extremes, good and evil, heaven and hell. She was taught that to dance was to sin, that gay people were child molesters and that mental illness was a function of satanic influence. Teachers at her schools talked about slavery as black immigration, and instructors called environmentalists “hippie witches.” ”
And apparently there are thousands of such schools, more and more receiving voucher students.
instructors called environmentalists “hippie witches”
What makes you think she is a hippie witch?
She turned me into a hippie…
A hippie??
I got better
shocking how this is not so far off the mark in 2020… 🙂
Can the boys Catholic schools refuse to admit girls?
Is separate but equal the practice’s defense?
It is very problematic to have boys schools sending students to D.C. to influence reproductive health legislation when the opposite sex has no representation in the school. The injuries that a policy inflicts on women alone is easily implemented when no woman’s voice is heard within the “hallowed” halls.
In Ireland, a baptismal record can be a requirement for admission. How is that not religious discrimination?
Cristo Rey, the Catholic school chain, vs. Catholic schools in suburbs that enroll wealthy students- one system requires students to work a week a month for private organizations and return the pay to the school, one buys Common Core curriculum and utilizes blended learning (computers), and one has a prototype with 60 students in a class.
Almost 60% of white Catholics voted for Trump. 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump.