NEWS ANALYSIS
City Council Gives $20 Million to Private Schools, Most Anti-Gay
Led by Speaker Mark-Viverito, backed by mayor, three gay members help chip away at church-state separation BY ANDY HUMM
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million in the first year — with escalator allowances for more in the future — from a $60 million request in April. While the city requires social service arms of religious groups that receive government contracts to pledge not to discriminate on any prohibited basis including sexual orientation and gender identity, no such restriction was placed on this funding. Most of the groups supporting it are from religions that teach that homosexuality is evil, restrict the role of women in leadership, and often lobby against LGBT rights. These groups include Agudath Israel of America, the Sephardic Community Federation, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn,
DONNA ACETO
ity Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and her colleagues pushed through an “unprecedented” bill December 7 to have city government pick up yet another function of private and religious schools — security — allocating almost $20 million in taxpayer funds outside the normal budget process for “safety officers” in any school with more than 300 students that wants one. Mark-Viverito had the support of the vast majority of elected officials, including three of the six out gay members of the Council: Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer of Queens, Carlos Menchaca of Brooklyn, and Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, despite the fact that it is a direct subsidy to schools mostly run by anti-gay religious groups that made up the bulk of those lobbying for it. Intro 65-A was vigorously opposed by out LGBT Councilmembers Daniel Dromm of Jackson Heights, a former public school teacher and head of the Education Committee, and Rosie Mendez of the Lower East Side, who said in a joint statement, “Yeshivas, private schools, and parochial schools — unlike public schools — are not subject to Council oversight or much of the NYC Human Rights Law. Too often their leaders embrace homophobia, transphobia, and other horrific ideologies, and subject our young people to them on a daily basis in the classroom. It is our duty to protect LGBTQ students in every school. We must not bankroll hate with tax dollars. Lamentably there is no mechanism in this legislation to prevent such a thing from happening.” Out Councilmember Corey Johnson of Chelsea also voted against it as did Inez Barron of Brooklyn, a staunch advocate for public education, but it passed 43-4 with the support of all three citywide elected officials — Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Public Advocate Tish James — as well as otherwise liberal officials such as Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.
While the mantra of supporters was that the legislation was for the “safety of children,” none explained why they have gone through their entire public lives without advocating for such safety officers before, leaving these kids in such ostensible peril for decades. More ominously, supporters of the bill also repeatedly refused to answer the question of what they saw as the limits to government funding for religious schools, expressly forbidden in the New York State Constitution. Indeed, the number one goal of religious schools is securing $250 million in state funds annually, an allocation that is supported by Governor Andrew Cuomo but was stopped by the Democrat-led Assembly this year.
Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Councilmembers Carlos Menchaca and Jimmy Van Bramer, seen here celebrating the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in June, all voted for the $20 million support package for private and religious schools.
New York’s Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, has vowed his church will continue to push for it. While de Blasio’s police department opposed an earlier version of Intro 65 in April as encroaching on the NYPD’s discretion by mandating police-supervised school safety officers for any school that wanted one, de Blasio worked with chief sponsor Councilmember David Greenfield of Brooklyn in crafting the revised bill to allow reimbursement for private schools that hire their own security guards, who are supposed to be trained, unionized, and paid a living wage. The negotiations did get Greenfield’s request down to just under $20
the Islamic Schools Association, and the Muslim Community Network. No progressive organization endorsed the bill, with the exception of SEIU 32BJ, which will organize the workers. In Ireland, education is carried out primarily by Catholic schools that are totally state-funded, and this week that nation’s parliament moved to bar these schools from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In New York City, religious institutions are exempt from the human rights law in most respects and not required to hire or include anyone they believe would compromise
their religious mission. Opposing Intro 65 were the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), which called it “unconstitutional,” Make the Road, the United Federation of Teachers, the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, Stonewall Democrats of New York, and others. Allen Roskoff, president of the Owles club, said, “While red states fight to pass laws allowing religious discrimination, we provide special monies to bigoted organizations like the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church, and Agudath Israel.” Eunic Ortiz, president of Stonewall, wrote, “Any school in NYC — public, private, charter, or otherwise — that face a serious threat will and do receive sufficient NYPD-appointed security that is funded by the city. To provide staff to all private — meaning mostly religious — schools without a proper review of which facility has a need for this kind of security is an expensive way of going around constitutional prohibitions against using taxpayer funding for religious institutions.” The Urban Youth Collaborative called the bill “an unprecedented step to subsidize private education using the public’s money,” noting in its release that according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, “New York City schools are owed $2.3 billion” under court judgements against the city and state for not providing a minimum adequate education in the public schools. The bill was also opposed by Class Size Matters, which fights for reasonable class sizes in the city’s overcrowded public schools. De Blasio called the bill “fiscally responsible,” but State Senator José Peralta told Gay City that he and other elected officials in Queens have been begging the administration for increased funding for crossing guards — something that would demonstrably aid the safety of public and private school students — only to be told that there is no money for it. Common Cause/ New York and the Citizens Budget Commission, in
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SCHOOLS, continued on p.52
December 10 - 23, 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc