Push To Expand Title VI to Religion
Jewish Groups Press for Permanent Civil Rights Extension
By Naomi Zeveloff
Published May 09, 2012, issue of May 18, 2012.
American Jewry’s umbrella organization for domestic issues has called on Congress to expand a key provision of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act to protect students from discrimination on the basis of religion. But the nascent effort has already raised the hackles of some Jewish officials who worry that this could open a can of worms over the separation of religion and state.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs voted May 6 to call for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in programs receiving federal assistance, to be expanded to include religion. It now bars discrimination on only the bases of race, ethnicity and national origin.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights already interpreted the law to cover religious groups that have “shared ethnic characteristics,” like Jews, Sikhs and Muslims. Now, Jewish groups, which pushed for the new interpretation, are asking to make this change permanent by revising the law.
“What an agency giveth, an agency can taketh away,” said Gerald Greiman, co-chair of the JCPA’s Task Force on Jewish Security and the Bill of Rights, which helped draft the resolution. “Having [religion] added to the statute would give those protections more permanence than a mere agency interpretation.”
http://forward.com/articles/155968/push-to-expand-title-vi-to-religion/