El Diario Op-Ed: Discrimination at Work in Our Schools

Op-Ed by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio 
and Council Member Fernando Cabrera

Grace Fellowship Church is a model tenant. In the six years it has rented space at P.S. 150 in Sunnyside, the congregation of 100 worshippers has partnered with neighbors to keep the community free of graffiti. They helped the school keep its drama program alive, offsetting steep budget cuts. Now, thanks to a horrendous decision by Mayor Bloomberg, Grace Fellowship just lost its home and Sunnyside has lost a pillar of its community.

On Sunday, Mayor Bloomberg evicted 68 religious institutions like Grace Fellowship that have rented space in public schools for decades. These groups are paying tenants, just like countless others including the Boy Scouts and athletic leagues. We have stood shoulder to shoulder with these congregations and their leaders over the past two months. They are remarkable assets not just to their communities, but to the schools they call home. Take the parishioners at Park Slope Presbyterian church, for example, who tutor students after classes let out at John Jay High School. These institutions help bind schools to the communities in which they sit.

We both firmly believe in the Separation of Church and State. That is not what’s at issue here. Religious groups are not looking for special treatment or exemptions or the ability to use space in public buildings without paying like everyone else. All congregations like Grace want are the same rights accorded to hundreds of other institutions in this city—the right to rent a room as they’ve done without incident or conflict for so many years. To evict them because they have a religious affiliation is discrimination, plain and simple.

The City’s grounds for kicking congregations out into the street are deeply flawed. The Mayor and Schools Chancellor point to a recent court ruling that allowed these evictions—but just because we can do something does not mean than our hand is forced. The City would be well within its legal rights to allow congregations to continue renting space as they always have. Look no further than the City’s public Housing Authority, which backed off its own eviction plan last month and continues to avail space to religious groups willing to pay rent.

Right up until the Sunday deadline, congregations had prayed the school system would back down as well. Now that the City has shown its hand and done the unthinkable, we need to appeal to a higher authority. Legislation that recently passed the State Senate would compel the City to allow religious groups to continue renting space in public schools—we need legislation in the State Assembly as well. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has made clear his belief that a compromise exists—we need to reach it quickly so we can get this law signed by Governor Cuomo at once. Otherwise, communities will be left stranded without the institutions and the services they have come to depend on.

Mayor Bloomberg would like to believe he is holding a line in yet another culture war. He’s wrong. This is a simple issue of fairness. Denying groups the right to rent space because of religious affiliation is a naked act of discrimination, and it’s one the State Legislature must quickly overturn. Let’s return congregations like Grace Fellowship back to their homes so they can continue serving the communities that have relied on them for so many years.