WASHINGTON (ABP) — Even as a House panel passed a bill Feb. 17 that would allow religious groups receiving federal funds for job training to discriminate in employment decisions, two civil-rights groups filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania challenging the constitutionality of the practice.
The House Education and Workforce Committee split along party lines in voting to send the “Job Training Improvement Act” to the full chamber for approval. The committee's 26 Republicans supported the proposal, while its 20 Democrats opposed it.
The bill would reauthorize a large federal job-training program that has existed since 1982, but would change language to allow religious job-training organizations receiving funds to discriminate on the basis of religion when making hiring decisions.
On the same morning, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a federal lawsuit against a Towanda, Pa., job-training program for prison inmates.
The suit claims that the Firm Foundation program at the Bradford County Correctional Center violates the First Amendment's ban on government funding of religious practice and illegally discriminates on the basis of religion in hiring for taxpayer-funded jobs.
The program — with more than 90 percent of its budget coming from federal, state and local government sources — claims to teach life and vocational skills to inmates, who are sent out to local construction sites under the supervision of program staff. “A significant proportion of inmates' time in the program is spent not on the learning of job skills, but on religious discussions, religious lectures, and prayer,” the suit says.
The complaint also notes that requirements for program staff include religious qualifications. Quoting from a job description for a site-manager's position for the group, it said that the manager “will be a [sic] example of a believer in Jesus Christ and Christian life today, sharing these ideals when the opportunity arises.”
The suit also names county officials and the administrator of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, which is part of the state governor's office and administers some grants for prison-related programs. It also names Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the federal Department of Justice.
Wayne Blow, president of Firm Foundation, had not returned an Associated Baptist Press reporter's telephone messages requesting comment on the lawsuit by press time for this story. Donna Pinkham, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania commission, said the organization had not yet seen the lawsuit, and thus had no response “at this time.”
The 1964 Civil Rights Act already allows churches and synagogues to discriminate in hiring for most positions on the basis of religious principles. However, the courts have not definitively settled the issue of whether religious groups retain that right when hiring for a position wholly or partly funded by tax dollars.
The issue of employment discrimination in federally funded programs has come to a head in the past few years, as President Bush has pushed for more federal funding of social services through churches and other religious charities. Though he failed to pass his “faith-based initiative” in its entirety through Congress, he has slowly implemented many parts of it via executive orders and other administrative actions.
Meanwhile, the House has done its part to aid piecemeal implementation of Bush's plan, including adding similar employment-discrimination provisions to a number of bills funding social-service providers. But most of those attempts have been thwarted in the Senate.
In debate on the Job Training Improvement Act Feb. 16, Democrats on the committee attempted to amend it to remove the language exempting religious providers from the program's discrimination requirements. That would have restored provisions under which the program has operated since its original passage in 1982. The amendment failed.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) then offered what Democrats called a “transparency” amendment to the bill. It would have required religious providers to publish a disclaimer in want ads that reads, in part, “you may be denied employment or discriminated against solely based on your religion, religious practices, or religious beliefs, regardless of merit or your qualifications.”
McCarthy referred to a recent Georgia case in which an applicant for a government-subsidized psychiatric position at a Methodist children's home was told, in the midst of his job interview, that he was not qualified for the position after the interviewer discovered he was Jewish. McCarthy noted that, while she does “not support the underlying provision that allows for job discrimination,” her amendment would “alert job applicants to this offensive” provision and help prevent such situations in the future.
But Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the committee's chairman, said such a requirement would have “a chilling effect” on religious job-training services attempting to apply for government grants under the program.
McCarthy's amendment failed, with all Republicans present opposing it and all but one Democrat, freshman Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), supporting it. Barrow is a member of First Baptist Church in Athens, Ga. Barrow also voted twice against earlier attempts to restore the non-discrimination language.
Harper Lawson, a spokesman for Barrow, said his boss voted as he did because he “believes that religious and faith-based organizations should have the freedom to hire individuals of their own faith” and that he thinks that “it is unreasonable for the federal government to force a religious or faith-based organization to hire individuals” who may not share the tenets of the group's faith.
The bill is House Resolution 27. The lawsuit is Moeller vs. Bradford County.