School patronage

alaimacerc

Peregrinus wrote: »

The exception allows religious schools to take religion into account in their admission decisions. But once a student is admitted, he has the same protection against discrimination as every other student, regardless of his religion, or lack of it. So if he was punished for not participating in sacramental preparation, or not attending church services, or whatever, I can't see that the school would have any defence.

This is a very interesting distinction. On the face of it, that means that a stated ethos, or the interpretation of an ethos, could be challenged if it goes past "denominational aspiration" and consensus of the kids the school actually ends up with.

If this is enforced, it could itself provide quite the incentive for the churches to divest down to levels corresponding to parental wishes, if the alternative is to find themselves being "diluted" in "their" schools to a extent they might not find acceptable.

recedite

Its important to note that the case was successful because the child was punished for not attending something that occurred outside school hours.

If pupils refused to attend the preparations (during school hours) the school might say they had insufficient staff to provide for the special supervision of these pupils.
But if the school was claiming to be "multidenominational" then either the faith formation would have to be "multidenominational" or the extra supervision would have to be provided.
Its interesting that this school wanted to continue preparing kids for the RC specific sacrament, but they stated that they were unable to change their patronage status from "multidenominational" to RC because of the mandate under which the school was originally set up.
So this must be why they changed their policy to include (library?) supervision for any child not wanting to attend the sacramental preparation.

If a school is State funded (as they all are) even a school with official RC patronage has a constitutional oblgation to have "due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter of religious and moral formation"
And also the EU obligation to "respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religions and philosophical convictions".
So it can be argued that all faith schools have an obligation to provide this supervision for pupils who choose to opt-out of indoctrination.
The Equality Officer is probably not looking at this bigger picture though. They are only looking to see if the Equal Status Act has been breached, and not whether the above higher ideals have been breached.

Peregrinus

Interesting thought.

But, remember, what the Equal Status Act prohibits is discrimination (specifically, in this context, discrimination on the grounds of religious belief) and the essence of discrimination involves treating people differently. If you apply the same rule to every student then, even if the rule is objectionable on other grounds, the rule is not on the face of it discriminatory.

Of course, that's too glib. A uniform rule requiring every student to participate in/attend Catholic sacramental preparation obviously leads, e.g. in this case, to the CofI kids being punished. And quite obviously that the reason they don't attend is that they're CofI, not Catholic. So this rule is discriminatory in its effect, even if not in it's form.

But, as between the Catholic kid who participates in sacramental preparation and the Catholic kid who does not, is the punishment of the latter a discrimination on the grounds of religious belief? By identifying as Catholics, they're professing the same beliefs as the kids who turn up to preparation. It's at least arguable that punishing them is not discrimination on the grounds of religious belief unless the parents withdraw them from preparation on the grounds that they are no longer Catholic - which, as we know, is a statement a lot of people are unwilling to make.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

But, as between the Catholic kid who participates in sacramental preparation and the Catholic kid who does not, is the punishment of the latter a discrimination on the grounds of religious belief?

I would think yes, because the family you describe is really "lapsed catholic" or maybe "agnostic". There is no requirement for a person's actual beliefs to match the religious label that is given to the person.
The only possible "offence" committed by that family is that they may have thwarted religious discrimination in the admissions policy (a form of discrimination which is officially sanctioned under the schools exemption to Equal Status Act)
But as you pointed out earlier, having got their child into the school (even under false pretences) the child must not be subjected to any form of discrimination.

In the particular Gaelscoil case, there was one other child in the class who did not attend, apart from the COI child, which was quite possibly from a lapsed catholic or agnostic family.

recedite

We can learn something useful from this Equality Authority decision. If a school is registered as "multidenominational" it cannot do RC communion preparation or teach anything which is specific to only one denomination, unless it also provides equal alternative supervised classes to cater for the other denominations.
As the other denominations do their stuff outside school hours, these alternative classes are likely going to be just library or homework time.

A school can only rely on the exemptions in the Equal Status Act to protect their registered ethos. Not the ethos of the majority of pupils.

In this case the Gaelscoil principal tried to claim that "95%" of the instruction material was common to RC and COI, but this was not good enough. It would have to be 100% or none.

The Gaelscoileanna are probably the only ones affected by this. They usually advertise as schools whose only brief is to teach through the Irish language, but in reality there is usually more to it than that. There are nearly always certain standard "preferences"; GAA is the preferred sport, tin whistle the preferred musical instrument, Irish Catholicism the preferred religion. Which is fine, but lets call a spade a spade. Its their idea of what a pure Irish cultural education should be.
Before you ask WTF is "Irish Catholicism" check this out, the only obscure reference to religion I can find on the website of the main Gaelscoil patron, An Foras Patrunachta is in the mission statement;

..As a patron, manager and educational organization, An Foras believes in its mission with regard to the Irish language and faith...

lazygal

Any gaelscoil I know does rc indoctrination and sacrament prep during school time. The one closest to us is very, very traditionally Catholic and no way inclusive of other beliefs. There's a rigorous interview process and enrollment criteria to make sure they only enrol the "right" sort.

expectationlost

they are 14 foras/gaelscoil interdominational schools

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

I would think yes, because the family you describe is really "lapsed catholic" or maybe "agnostic". There is no requirement for a person's actual beliefs to match the religious label that is given to the person.

Couple of thoughts:

First, Catholic is not a “label that is given” to the people concerned. It’s the identify that they claim for themselves. They claimed that identity when seeking admission to the school and (in the hypothetical we are considering) they are still actively claiming it.

By contrast, the labels “lapsed Catholic” and “agnostic” are labels that are being given to them - by you. Merely because they do not wish their child, at this point, to participate in a particular ritual of the Catholic church does not mean they are “lapsed Catholics”, and it certainly doesn’t mean they are agnostics.

On reflection, I wonder if our hypothetical scenario, though interesting, is terribly realistic? Jus to recap, I think the scenario under discussion is this:

- Parents identify as Catholic, but are not engaged in the regular practice of that religion.
- Parents send their kids to a Catholic school where there is an expectation that Catholic kids will be prepared for and will receive the sacraments.
- Parents seek to withdraw their children from sacramental preparation, while continuing to identify as Catholic.

My guess is that this combination of events won’t arise very often. By far the commonest situation, not just in Ireland but elsewhere, is that parents who identify as Catholic but do not practice regularly mostly do want the “highlights” to mark major life events. They want their children baptised, they want to be married in church and in due course buried from church. They want their children to go to Catholic schools, not just because they (may) think the Catholic schools are academically superior or they (may) have no choice, but because they feel an affinity for Catholicism and they value a Catholic formation for their children. And they want their children to go through the usual markers - First Communion, Confirmation. This may annoy priests and bishops, who feel their practice of the faith should be consistent, and it may annoy secularists who feel their non-practice should be consistent (and their identity should line up with their non-practice) but it’s nevertheless the widely-observed and long-established reality. It's pretty much the norm in what we might call "post-Catholic" countries in Europe.

So my suspicion is that in practice the number of parents who will say “yes, we’re Catholics, and we have our children in a Catholic school, but we don’t want our them to participate in religious instruction/sacramental preparation” is probably pretty small. It may be a while, therefore, before this case is brought.

I think in the Irish context, with the massive domination of the schools by One Church Which Shall Remain Nameless, a more realistic scenario is this:

- Parents initially identify as Catholics, and part or all of their motivation in doing so is to get the kid into the school, which prioritises Catholic kids.
- Having acheivbed that objective, at some later point parents cease to identify as Catholic, and seek to withdraw the kid from religious instruction/sacramental preparation. They don't say they were never Catholic; just that they no longer are.

That may be a much more likely case to be brought but, sadly, it’s a much less interesting one for us to speculate about; legally, it’s an absolute no-brainer. Following the decision just made, if the child is punished because its parents withdraw it on the grounds that the family is not Catholic, that is unlawful discrimination on the grounds of religious belief - no question. If you’re not Catholic, you’re not Catholic, and it makes no difference whether you are CoI or unbeliever, or whether you ever used to be Catholic.

recedite wrote: »

We can learn something useful from this Equality Authority decision. If a school is registered as "multidenominational" it cannot do RC communion preparation or teach anything which is specific to only one denomination, unless it also provides equal alternative supervised classes to cater for the other denominations.
As the other denominations do their stuff outside school hours, these alternative classes are likely going to be just library or homework time.

You’re going a bit beyond what this decision establishes. It just establishes that you can’t punish the kids who withdraw from RC preparation/instruction on the grounds of religious belief. It doesn’t say that you have to provide “equal alternative supervised classes”. The parents’ complaints did refer to the inadequacy of alternatives offered (at one stage they were told that they could only take him out of religion classes if they could bring him home for the duration, so the school wouldn’t have to make separate arrangements) but their main focus was on active punishment of their child, and the conclusions of the Equality Officer find that making the child stand against the wall, denying a homework pass, etc, were discriminatory, but she does not find that the failure to provide an alternative to attending religious instruction was discriminatory. (Or that it wasn’t - she leaves the question open.)

recedite wrote: »

A school can only rely on the exemptions in the Equal Status Act to protect their registered ethos. Not the ethos of the majority of pupils.

Yes. Under s. 7 of the Equal Status Act, the “ethos of the school” which can justify religious discrimination in admission policies is determined by the “objective of the school” to provide education in an environment which promotes “certain religious values”. So it’s the school managers, essentially, who determine the ethos and values that enjoy protection. But the school doesn't have to register an ethos, if "registration" implies some external acceptance or validation by, e.g., the Minister or the Department. The school is free to adopt its own objectives (as long as they're not unlawful objectives).

recedite wrote: »

The Gaelscoileanna are probably the only ones affected by this. They usually advertise as schools whose only brief is to teach through the Irish language, but in reality there is usually more to it than that. There are nearly always certain standard "preferences"; GAA is the preferred sport, tin whistle the preferred musical instrument, Irish Catholicism the preferred religion. Which is fine, but lets call a spade a spade. Its their idea of what a pure Irish cultural education should be.
Before you ask WTF is "Irish Catholicism" check this out, the only obscure reference to religion I can find on the website of the main Gaelscoil patron, An Foras Patrunachta is in the mission statement;

I think all schools are affected by this. If a school under Catholic management, or a school with a multidenominational ethos, treated this child in this way, the outcome of the case would have been the same.

The quote you found from the An Foras Patrunachta mission statement is interesting - if puzzling. What in God’s name is “Irish language and faith”? It’s not even clear to me that this is a reference to religious faith, much less to Christianity or Catholicism. (Neo-Celtic paganism, anybody? Faith in the destiny of the Irish nation? The pure faith that language is the true badge of nationhood?) But I suspect that the mission statement of AFP itself doesn’t necessarily determine the “objectives” of every school they run; it’s possible that each school has its own mission statement or similar document, and that these may differ from school to school.

alaimacerc

Peregrinus wrote: »

By far the commonest situation, not just in Ireland but elsewhere, is that parents who identify as Catholic but do not practice regularly mostly do want the “highlights” to mark major life events. [...] It's pretty much the norm in what we might call "post-Catholic" countries in Europe.

Sure it is; what's exceptional and anomalous is the extent of "intertwining" of church and state that makes such identification (still more) problematic.

So it’s the school managers, essentially, who determine the ethos and values that enjoy protection. But the school doesn't have to register an ethos, if "registration" implies some external acceptance or validation by, e.g., the Minister or the Department. The school is free to adopt its own objectives (as long as they're not unlawful objectives).

I don't think they determine it in the sense that they're able to have a meeting one day and decide "right, new ethos is the following", and have that have legal effect on their admissions policy. These "ethosy mission statements" are just elaborations, surely, on denominational characters determined when a patron is installed in the first place.

The quote you found from the An Foras Patrunachta mission statement is interesting - if puzzling. What in God’s name is “Irish language and faith”?

It's such a clunker that my first thoughts were to suspect either "dog whistle" on the one hand, or "written after a very good liquid lunch" on the other.

But I suspect that the mission statement of AFP itself doesn’t necessarily determine the “objectives” of every school they run; it’s possible that each school has its own mission statement or similar document, and that these may differ from school to school.

I can't confirm they're individualised at that level, but elsewhere on AFP's website they go into much more detail on "denominational characteristic spirit". In short, some are denom, some are interdenom, and some are multidenom. (And "Orthodox" is declared to be "Catholic", which is an "interesting" move in cladistic, historical, and ontological terms.) I assume these "spirits" are formally specified in some manner initially, even though it's not "one-to-one" as regards the identity of the patron in this case.

expectationlost

this school isn't being replaced by a ET school or anything but the North Mon in Cork is proposed to be merged with another school because of lack of numbers and the locals are going mad over it http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/north-mon-trustees-face-dail-grilling-over-amalgamation-plans-260343.html

expectationlost

Small number of Catholic schools may transfer to new patrons later in year http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/small-number-of-catholic-schools-may-transfer-to-new-patrons-later-in-year-260491.html

expectationlost

Parents’ views to inform schools’ faiths policy

Friday, March 07, 2014

The views of more than 350 parents are being assessed in the formation of government policy on how Catholic schools should cater for children of other beliefs and traditions.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/parents-views-to-inform-schools-faiths-policy-261113.html

The emphasis is on 1,700 standalone Catholic schools in areas where families of different faiths or none have no other local school to choose from for their children.

you'd think if the problem was that big they'd do something other then just geting catholic schools to accomodate them

expectationlost

Religion not prioritised over literacy and numeracy say Catholic schools http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/religion-not-prioritised-over-literacy-and-numeracy-say-catholic-schools-260393.html

not they are just enveloped by religion

Zamboni

Demand from parents leads to four new multi-denominational schools

http://www.thejournal.ie/patronage-schools-educate-together-1357717-Mar2014/

Hotblack Desiato

Woo. FOUR schools! Within another century or two we'll be there!

Also this was reported on the radio as a 'divestment', it appears nothing of the sort.

Quinn said that talks are continued with the main Catholic patrons about securing permanent accommodation in the towns chosen.

Maybe I'm cynical but I fully expect the current patrons to lead the Dept / ET on a merry dance on this one. The ETs will have to set up in temporary accommodation (says so in the article.)

recedite

Its not "divestment" as such. Here's the routine;

Existing faith school suffers a decline in pupil numbers, loses teachers as a result. School closes.

Local people set up an ET school, start it in some temporary accommodation, and get teachers as a result.

Some time later, Dept. of Education purchases the derelict school building and dickies it up. Awards patronage of the "new" school building to the ET school, because they have the pupils to fill it.

Instead the Dept. should build some brand new school buildings, and leave the religious institutions to dispose of their old ones.

The "barrier to entry" in this competitive "schools market" is the fact that most parents don't want to enrol their kid in a school that proposes to operate out of a pre-fab, or as was the case with the Basin Lane ET school, no building at all.

"Divestment" would be if the dept. walked into an existing fully functional school, and asked them to hand control to another patron.
If they refused, remove all the state support.

Hotblack Desiato

Interesting article

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/to-be-honest-it-s-time-to-discriminate-in-favour-of-non-catholics-1.1716439

Please, Educate Together, prioritise us non-religious. Operate a first-come first- served system after that, but stop pretending the world is an equal place. For children like my son, education options are very unequal indeed.

Zamboni

ninja900 wrote: »

Interesting article

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/to-be-honest-it-s-time-to-discriminate-in-favour-of-non-catholics-1.1716439

It's not interesting. It's asking for more discrimination.
Getting ET to stoop to denominational schools level is not the answer.

kylith

Zamboni wrote: »

It's not interesting. It's asking for more discrimination.
Getting ET to stoop to denominational schools level is not the answer.

It's a fair point though. Catholic children have priority in Catholic schools so why shouldn't non-religious children have priority in non-religious schools? I'd be livid if I had to send my child to a Catholic school because the local ET was full of Catholics.

marienbad

kylith wrote: »

It's a fair point though. Catholic children have priority in Catholic schools so why shouldn't non-religious children have priority in non-religious schools? I'd be livid if I had to send my child to a Catholic school because the local ET was full of Catholics.

ET students have always had to travel outside their catchment area to find a suitable ethos and that may be case now for some catholic parents .


The solution is more ET Schools not more shared schools .

kylith

marienbad wrote: »

ET students have always had to travel outside their catchment area to find a suitable ethos and that may be case now for some catholic parents .


The solution is more ET Schools not more shared schools .

I doubt if that is the case, though I admit that I could be wrong, as I don't know of any areas where there is an ET school but not a RCC school. CoI parents may have a hard time finding an appropriate school, but not RCC.

I do agree that the solution is more ET schools, but in the mean time I think that there would be no harm if Catholic parents are asked to put a RCC school as their first choice for their child and leave the ET schools to children for whom there is no suitable ethos school nearby. After all, the supposed insistence of Catholic parents to have Catholic ethos schools for their children is one of the reasons given for the RCC being given patronage of so many schools.

marienbad

kylith wrote: »

I doubt if that is the case, though I admit that I could be wrong, as I don't know of any areas where there is an ET school but not a RCC school. CoI parents may have a hard time finding an appropriate school, but not RCC.

I do agree that the solution is more ET schools, but in the mean time I think that there would be no harm if Catholic parents are asked to put a RCC school as their first choice for their child and leave the ET schools to children for whom there is no suitable ethos school nearby. After all, the supposed insistence of Catholic parents to have Catholic ethos schools for their children is one of the reasons given for the RCC being given patronage of so many schools.

My kids and now their kids go to ET schools and travel past half a dozen RCC schools to get there.

I assume with some catholic parents all the RCC schools are full in their area and thus the desire to use the ET school as it is closer.

alaimacerc

kylith wrote: »

Catholic children have priority in Catholic schools so why shouldn't non-religious children have priority in non-religious schools?

Because they're not "non-religious schools", in the first instance. It's one thing for a RCC school to have an admission policy that says that Kitty Holland's children are 11th (and last) because they live in the parish, but aren't Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, but what would that plausibly look like for an ET school? Would it distinguish between atheists, agnostics, religious minorities (especially ones with no single- or inter-denominational provision at all) and people who're religious (to some degree) but do actually prefer secularism in public life to ones run by the local prelate, jetting in rent-a-lie religious fundies to do their sex "education"? Crazy thought, I know.

You can bet your bottom dollar that an admission policy that said "anyone but the Catholics" would cause a stink such as would beggar belief.

VinLieger

alaimacerc wrote: »

Because they're not "non-religious schools", in the first instance. It's one thing for a RCC school to have an admission policy that says that Kitty Holland's children are 11th (and last) because they live in the parish, but aren't Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, but what would that plausibly look like for an ET school? Would it distinguish between atheists, agnostics, religious minorities (especially ones with no single- or inter-denominational provision at all) and people who're religious (to some degree) but do actually prefer secularism in public life to ones run by the local prelate, jetting in rent-a-lie religious fundies to do their sex "education"? Crazy thought, I know.

You can bet your bottom dollar that an admission policy that said "anyone but the Catholics" would cause a stink such as would beggar belief.

Agreed but surely the prioirity should be children who are not a priority elsewhere?

expectationlost

Multi-denominational schools forced to open in temporary accommodation http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/multi-denominational-schools-forced-to-open-in-temporary-accommodation-261759.html

alaimacerc

VinLieger wrote: »

Agreed but surely the prioirity should be children who are not a priority elsewhere?

Meta-priorities! Trouble is, there's no "general intake system". Short of introducing one (which is way above ET's paygrade, and would I imagine require ministerial orders, if not whole new legislation), it seems hard to write a "whatever everyone else isn't having" policy. You'd have to literally crib from the others', split the difference, then flip it around.

Hotblack Desiato

We can't expect 2% of our schools to counteract the unfairness of the other 96%.

I think the author of that article had a point though. Discrimination (albeit unconstitutional) has become so entrenched that hardly anyone even notices it any more. Children of religious parents (christian religion, that is) get a big leg up in 96% of schools, yet if the approx 2% of ETs were seen to counteract that in any way then the hounds would be unleashed.

You couldn't make this up.

alaimacerc

I think we should bear in mind that ET schools aren't "secular", or even "non-denominational", they're multidenom. They have to be, given the nature of the funding model and present legislation. How exactly do you write an admission policy for a MD school that says "atheists and agnostics first"? Changing that definitely requires primary legislation. (And much-needed it is, too.)

Zamboni

ET response

http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/letters/discrimination-in-education-1.1724135

recedite

Kind of ironic that atheists and agnostics will continue to be martyrs for their own cause, of ethics and morality, while faith schools will continue to ignore such considerations.