WEBVTT 00:00:09.410 --> 00:00:16.927 - And I am a member of the Steering Committee of Bloomington United. I'm also the Rabbi of Congregation 00:00:16.927 --> 00:00:25.182 - B'shalom. And I'm sort of facilitating this meeting tonight. We're set up kind of formally with microphones and 00:00:25.282 --> 00:00:31.914 - But this is really meant to be a town meeting where we get to talk to one another and dialogue about 00:00:31.914 --> 00:00:38.678 - issues that are important. I will say that the microphones here are very important. We're being taped. 00:00:38.678 --> 00:00:45.245 - And so when the time comes for community discussion, I will ask that you find a microphone to speak 00:00:45.245 --> 00:00:47.806 - from so that you'll get taped as well. 00:00:47.938 --> 00:00:54.230 - Just a sense of what you can expect this evening. I'll have a few brief words of introduction and then 00:00:54.230 --> 00:00:59.422 - I'll turn the program over to our panelists who will each make a short presentation. 00:00:59.714 --> 00:01:06.906 - After their presentations, we'll have, I hope, about 45 minutes for general community discussion. Then, 00:01:06.906 --> 00:01:13.822 - I'm pleased to say that the Reverend CJ Hocking, who's also standing outside holding a sign telling 00:01:13.822 --> 00:01:18.110 - everyone where to go, was kind enough to bake cookies for us. 00:01:18.210 --> 00:01:24.559 - So please stay after the formal program ends. We can talk a little bit. These gatherings of Bloomington 00:01:24.559 --> 00:01:30.786 - United are often great places to meet people with similar concerns and interests and network a little 00:01:30.786 --> 00:01:37.013 - bit. So please stay for cookies. We need to be out of the room by about a quarter of nine to help the 00:01:37.013 --> 00:01:40.798 - library close up. So that's what you can expect this evening. 00:01:41.474 --> 00:01:50.019 - According to my count, this is the fourth town meeting that Bloomington United has sponsored in recent 00:01:50.019 --> 00:01:58.316 - years. Bloomington United is a coalition of diverse community members that emerged in the summer of 00:01:58.316 --> 00:02:03.294 - 1998 to respond to some acute hate activity in Bloomington. 00:02:03.522 --> 00:02:11.131 - Since then, we've tried to respond quickly and responsibly to other acts of hate, and most recently, 00:02:11.131 --> 00:02:18.891 - Bloomington United led the Every Minute Count effort in response to a very hateful message that people 00:02:18.891 --> 00:02:23.486 - were bringing into People's Park from outside our community. 00:02:24.386 --> 00:02:31.623 - That's primarily what Bloomington United is known for, and you might have seen lawn signs sprout up 00:02:31.623 --> 00:02:39.150 - around Bloomington at critical times. But in between those crises, we try to have meetings such as this 00:02:39.150 --> 00:02:45.374 - one, gatherings where concerned citizens can talk together about issues of diversity. 00:02:46.082 --> 00:02:52.831 - So in the past we've had a forum on hate crimes, we've had one on issues of special interest to the 00:02:52.831 --> 00:03:00.053 - black community in Bloomington, and we also had one on issues concerning the Latino community. And tonight 00:03:00.053 --> 00:03:05.790 - our topic will help us touch on issues of special relevance to religious minorities. 00:03:06.178 --> 00:03:13.877 - I'll share with you Bloomington United's mission. Bloomington United is a coalition of community members 00:03:13.877 --> 00:03:21.503 - whose mission is to promote educational opportunities that affirm the value of all human beings, bridge 00:03:21.503 --> 00:03:29.202 - the differences between people, and respond to hate activity in our community. There are several sign-in 00:03:29.202 --> 00:03:36.094 - sheets being distributed now. When they come to you, please give me your name and your email. 00:03:36.258 --> 00:03:42.745 - There's a possibility that interesting information might emerge from tonight's meeting. And so if I 00:03:42.745 --> 00:03:49.492 - have your email, I'll try to share it with everybody. Also, Bloomington United does keep a distribution 00:03:49.492 --> 00:03:55.979 - list so that when there are future activities, if you are on the email list, you'll be sure to find 00:03:55.979 --> 00:04:02.466 - out about them. Also, I'm happy to say that with the help of the Safe and Civil City program, a new 00:04:02.466 --> 00:04:04.542 - and improved Bloomington United 00:04:04.866 --> 00:04:14.809 - United website is now coming soon and so you can soon check on the web for more information about Bloomington 00:04:14.809 --> 00:04:24.300 - United and also we have some resources about tonight's topic to share so at the end of the meeting we'll 00:04:24.300 --> 00:04:27.102 - put those out for you as well. 00:04:27.554 --> 00:04:37.579 - It's Bloomington United, our meeting tonight. We called, this is an hour and a half meeting with a very 00:04:37.579 --> 00:04:47.701 - long title, Religion, Public Life, and Civic Values, Living with Diversity in a Democracy. Our gathering 00:04:47.701 --> 00:04:49.918 - was specifically times 00:04:50.018 --> 00:04:57.273 - to come at a time when so many of our neighbors are preparing for the Christmas holiday at home, 00:04:57.273 --> 00:05:05.126 - in church, and also in their public spaces, in our public spaces. And actually driving here just tonight 00:05:05.126 --> 00:05:13.129 - I was hearing on the local news that today students in the Monroe County Schools were working on ornaments 00:05:13.129 --> 00:05:19.038 - for the downtown Christmas tree. So the topic that we're discussing tonight is 00:05:19.266 --> 00:05:26.487 - very relevant and very real and something that many of us are concerned about. To what degree is it 00:05:26.487 --> 00:05:33.708 - appropriate to bring such observances into public spaces and in particular into our public schools? 00:05:33.708 --> 00:05:40.929 - What is the experience of those who do not celebrate Christmas at this time of year? And how can we 00:05:40.929 --> 00:05:47.934 - as a community best honor the religious diversity, including those who are not religious at all, 00:05:48.034 --> 00:05:55.459 - our citizens and our students. These are some of the questions that I've asked our panelists to address 00:05:55.459 --> 00:05:58.814 - and that we'll be discussing together shortly. 00:05:58.882 --> 00:06:05.527 - I'd like to thank all those organizations that are co-sponsors of tonight's event, so thanks for your 00:06:05.527 --> 00:06:12.562 - support and also for your help with publicity. Co-sponsors include the Bloomington Human Rights Commission, 00:06:12.562 --> 00:06:19.207 - the Bloomington Safe and Civil City Program, the Center for University Ministry, Parents, Family, and 00:06:19.207 --> 00:06:25.786 - Friends of Lesbians and Gays, that's the Bloomington chapter, the Progressive Faculty Coalition, the 00:06:25.786 --> 00:06:28.848 - American Association of University Professors, 00:06:28.848 --> 00:06:35.945 - the Social Justice Coordinating Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church, and the Bloomington 00:06:35.945 --> 00:06:43.396 - chapter of the ACLU, the American Civil Liberty Union. Thanks, all of you, for your help. Speaking first 00:06:43.396 --> 00:06:50.564 - tonight will be Jeff Isaac, who is a professor of political science at Indiana University. After his 00:06:50.564 --> 00:06:57.022 - comments, Annette Briggs will offer a perspective rooted in her own theological commitment 00:06:57.186 --> 00:07:03.902 - This is Annette, and she is pastor of University Baptist Church. And then Sarah Franklin will offer 00:07:03.902 --> 00:07:10.753 - a perspective from the ground, speaking about how issues of church and state are put into practice in 00:07:10.753 --> 00:07:17.805 - the context of a public school. Sarah Franklin is principal of Bloomington High School North. So I won't 00:07:17.805 --> 00:07:24.722 - interrupt again until they're all three of them finished talking. Again, thank you all for being here, 00:07:24.722 --> 00:07:27.006 - and thank you panelists. So Jeff. 00:07:29.474 --> 00:07:37.122 - My comments will be brief. I would like to start by telling a story about Bloomington United and then 00:07:37.122 --> 00:07:44.846 - tell a story about something that has to do neither with Bloomington nor being united and then go from 00:07:44.846 --> 00:07:53.694 - there and just make a couple of points about the topic of what I'll simply call civic values in a democratic society. 00:07:54.882 --> 00:08:01.924 - Many people in the community are aware of Bloomington United's existence because of the sign campaign 00:08:01.924 --> 00:08:08.827 - that we organized first in the summer of 1998 in response to the distribution of hate literature in 00:08:08.827 --> 00:08:15.938 - our community. And we organized these actually very aesthetically powerful signs, white cardboard with 00:08:15.938 --> 00:08:22.841 - black lettering. And it said on the front of the sign, no hate speech, not in our yards, not in our 00:08:22.841 --> 00:08:24.222 - town, not anywhere. 00:08:27.074 --> 00:08:33.902 - Shortly thereafter, the people involved in that effort found themselves, at least some of them, me, 00:08:33.902 --> 00:08:40.731 - found myself often having interesting conversations with people at Indiana University and elsewhere 00:08:40.731 --> 00:08:47.628 - about what we mean when we say no hate speech. Are we trying to abolish certain forms of speech? Are 00:08:47.628 --> 00:08:53.022 - we calling for the banning of certain kinds of speech? And that can't be good. 00:08:53.122 --> 00:09:00.022 - We have a First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and we believe in freedom of expression in this 00:09:00.022 --> 00:09:06.922 - democracy of ours. We tried to clarify this. In fact, our second sign eliminated the phrase no hate 00:09:06.922 --> 00:09:13.822 - speech. But I guess the point I want to make about this very poorly told story is that when we said 00:09:13.822 --> 00:09:20.446 - no hate speech on our sign, those of us who put the sign together, what we meant to say was not 00:09:21.570 --> 00:09:28.471 - certain kinds of speech ought to be prohibited by the government, but rather certain kinds of speech 00:09:28.471 --> 00:09:35.508 - are unacceptable in our community, that we as citizens of the community are articulating a moral voice 00:09:35.508 --> 00:09:42.409 - that we're standing for certain values, that the promotion of bigotry and hatred in our community is 00:09:42.409 --> 00:09:49.310 - wrong, not because we regard it as illegal to promote bigotry and hatred, but because we think it is 00:09:49.538 --> 00:09:56.146 - morally wrong and detrimental to the values of our community. And that while we recognize the right, 00:09:56.146 --> 00:10:03.277 - the constitutional right of people to say vile things, we stand for something else, the values of pluralism, 00:10:03.277 --> 00:10:10.147 - civility, and equal respect. And when people say vile things, we will say positive, constructive things, 00:10:10.147 --> 00:10:14.334 - hopefully in a louder and more constructive and more civil way. 00:10:15.874 --> 00:10:21.951 - Today I want to talk a little bit about what I'll call the ethics of citizenship. Now the ethics of 00:10:21.951 --> 00:10:28.393 - citizenship is a topic that's closely linked to questions of constitutional law. And in this conversation 00:10:28.393 --> 00:10:34.653 - I'm sure we're going to quickly move to certain discussions about what kinds of things are appropriate 00:10:34.653 --> 00:10:40.062 - or inappropriate in a public school according to interpretations of the First Amendment. 00:10:40.386 --> 00:10:45.966 - And these are important questions. There are legal questions at stake here that are adjudicated in the 00:10:45.966 --> 00:10:51.437 - courts and that are discussed by lawyers. It's important for us to be aware of them and as citizens, 00:10:51.437 --> 00:10:56.962 - it's important for us to engage them. I want to talk about briefly about a different set of questions 00:10:56.962 --> 00:11:02.487 - which are related but not the same that have to do not with the topic of what the law permits or does 00:11:02.487 --> 00:11:07.742 - not permit but the topic of what I'll simply call the civic values of a democratic society might 00:11:08.066 --> 00:11:14.876 - be understood to permit or not permit. I want to talk a little bit about the topic of civility. And 00:11:14.876 --> 00:11:21.686 - now I'm going to tell my second story. Briefly, I'm reading from a BBC newswire from the 8th of May 00:11:21.686 --> 00:11:28.495 - of this year, and it's about violence in Gujarat, which is an area in India. It's a state in India. 00:11:28.495 --> 00:11:30.334 - This is what BBC reported. 00:11:30.594 --> 00:11:36.208 - Mobs of Hindus and Muslims set upon each other overnight in several areas. The army was called in after 00:11:36.208 --> 00:11:41.931 - police failed to disperse the crowds which were armed with pistols, iron rods, stones, homemade explosive 00:11:41.931 --> 00:11:47.545 - devices and acid bombs. The latest clashes brought the number of dead to at least 23 since Sunday. This 00:11:47.545 --> 00:11:53.106 - was Wednesday, so within three days. Some of the violence was reported to have been in retaliation for 00:11:53.106 --> 00:11:58.504 - the death on Tuesday of a Muslim teacher who was burnt alive after being dragged off his scooter on 00:11:58.504 --> 00:11:59.422 - his way to work. 00:12:00.098 --> 00:12:05.902 - More than 900 people, mainly Muslims, have been killed since late February when Hindu mobs went on the 00:12:05.902 --> 00:12:11.876 - rampage to a vengeance attack on a train carrying Hindu activists from the disputed holy site at Ayodhya. 00:12:11.876 --> 00:12:17.680 - I'm almost done. Right-wing Hindu organizations say the violence represented a spontaneous retaliation 00:12:17.680 --> 00:12:23.710 - for the train attack which left 58 Hindus dead. But human rights groups and foreign observers have alleged 00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:26.302 - the wholesale complicity of state authorities 00:12:26.658 --> 00:12:33.048 - in what they say was a systematic campaign targeting the Muslim majority. Rights groups also say that 00:12:33.048 --> 00:12:39.376 - at least 2,000 have died and many more have been forced to remain in refugee camps in Gujarat unable 00:12:39.376 --> 00:12:45.703 - to go back to their homes. That is taking place pretty much today in India. And there are many other 00:12:45.703 --> 00:12:52.031 - parts of the world where similar things are going on. A couple of weeks ago there was a similar kind 00:12:52.031 --> 00:12:55.038 - of episode in Nigeria that was widely reported. 00:12:55.746 --> 00:13:02.452 - These kinds of things that are going on in other parts of the world now were going on in Europe in the 00:13:02.452 --> 00:13:08.963 - 16th century as a result of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The 16th century is one of 00:13:08.963 --> 00:13:15.604 - the bloodiest centuries in the history of Europe and had a profound effect upon European civilization 00:13:15.604 --> 00:13:22.115 - and also upon our culture, which was forged in part as a result to escape some of the nastiness and 00:13:22.115 --> 00:13:25.566 - brutality of the religious wars of the 16th century. 00:13:25.922 --> 00:13:31.864 - So I want to talk a little bit about the idea of religious toleration and the idea of pluralism that 00:13:31.864 --> 00:13:37.923 - is associated with it and be very brief, turn it over to the other panelists and hopefully we can then 00:13:37.923 --> 00:13:43.924 - talk further. The idea of religious toleration emerges in response to these types of things in Europe 00:13:43.924 --> 00:13:49.924 - in the 16th and 17th centuries. And it emerges as what we might call a rational response to religious 00:13:49.924 --> 00:13:51.454 - persecution and violence. 00:13:51.970 --> 00:13:58.636 - What emerges is a new idea of religious liberty, the idea that people ought to be free to practice religions 00:13:58.636 --> 00:14:05.058 - of their choice and they ought not to be encumbered by the state or by practitioners of other religions. 00:14:05.058 --> 00:14:11.174 - The idea is that the state should remove itself from religious devotion and religious practice as a 00:14:11.174 --> 00:14:14.782 - way of assuring to individuals a maximum amount of freedom 00:14:14.946 --> 00:14:22.540 - for them to believe as they believe and to practice the religion of their choice without fear of coercion, 00:14:22.540 --> 00:14:29.849 - without fear of persecution. The idea of religious liberty initially serves a protective function. The 00:14:29.849 --> 00:14:36.946 - whole idea of separation of church and state was designed in the first instance to make it possible 00:14:36.946 --> 00:14:41.630 - for people to practice the religion of their choice without fear. 00:14:42.434 --> 00:14:48.601 - This involved to some extent the domestication, what we might call the domestication of religious enthusiasm 00:14:48.601 --> 00:14:54.316 - in two senses, you know, domestication in the sense of taming and domestication also in the sense of 00:14:54.316 --> 00:15:00.087 - privatizing. What is going on is a new conception of religious practice, but I think what needs to be 00:15:00.087 --> 00:15:04.670 - understood about this is that its purpose is to make religious freedom possible. 00:15:04.866 --> 00:15:11.497 - The purpose is not to drive religion from society, but in fact to create spaces of freedom where religious 00:15:11.497 --> 00:15:18.251 - practice is protected by the state and where the state is not used as an instrument for religious minorities 00:15:18.251 --> 00:15:24.510 - to persecute, majorities to persecute religious minorities. This is a very important idea, which was 00:15:24.510 --> 00:15:29.406 - the foundation of the modern constitutional state, which was the foundation of 00:15:30.178 --> 00:15:36.953 - the American Revolution and the foundation of the U.S. Constitution. The development of this idea of 00:15:36.953 --> 00:15:43.661 - religious liberty was associated with a new political vocabulary that was largely secularized. It's 00:15:43.661 --> 00:15:50.503 - not that people were no longer interested in God or no longer talked about God or the Bible, but they 00:15:50.503 --> 00:15:57.278 - increasingly complemented this language with a new language, a language about universal human rights 00:15:57.538 --> 00:16:03.512 - and a language about the secular interest that human beings share as people who take an interest in 00:16:03.512 --> 00:16:09.725 - themselves and who take an interest in their worldly advancement and their property and their families, 00:16:09.725 --> 00:16:15.699 - a new idea of individual privacy. And the concept of religious liberty is closely associated with a 00:16:15.699 --> 00:16:22.270 - more robust conception of individual privacy, which assumes increasing prominence in the early modern period. 00:16:22.658 --> 00:16:29.846 - Associated with this is the idea of what a couple of historians have called the godless constitution. 00:16:29.846 --> 00:16:37.104 - The idea that the function of a constitution is not to enforce any religious orthodoxy, but to protect 00:16:37.104 --> 00:16:44.433 - a series of basic rights which allow individuals the freedom to practice whatever religion they choose. 00:16:44.433 --> 00:16:51.550 - The idea of a godless constitution does not mean a godless society. It means, in fact, that religion 00:16:51.650 --> 00:16:58.910 - is free to flourish in society as individuals choose to practice religion. A very important idea. Now 00:16:58.910 --> 00:17:06.241 - this is the next idea that I want to talk briefly about is the really important thing from the vantage 00:17:06.241 --> 00:17:13.216 - point of this panel. Associated with this new idea of religious liberty and the idea of a godless 00:17:13.216 --> 00:17:19.550 - constitution is a new language of the common good. The idea that individuals as citizens 00:17:20.962 --> 00:17:27.844 - all individuals are holders of rights and bearers of responsibilities, that individuals are primarily 00:17:27.844 --> 00:17:35.064 - responsible for themselves, that all individuals have a primary interest in their own freedom, and because 00:17:35.064 --> 00:17:41.946 - each of us wishes to live our life in accordance with our own deeply held values and our own personal 00:17:41.946 --> 00:17:48.693 - plans, we agreed to join together on the basis of mutual respect. The idea here sometimes is called 00:17:48.693 --> 00:17:50.110 - the social contract. 00:17:51.138 --> 00:17:58.641 - The social contract assumes that difference between individuals is ineliminable, it cannot be eliminated 00:17:58.641 --> 00:18:06.002 - and that individual differences are valuable and ought to be respected by the law within certain broad 00:18:06.002 --> 00:18:12.862 - limits and that within those limits, individual citizens ought to be respectful of one another. 00:18:13.634 --> 00:18:20.169 - Now, this idea of the social contract, the idea that individuals ought to be respectful of the values 00:18:20.169 --> 00:18:26.895 - of others even when they do not hold those values is not natural. It is not easy. It does not come easy. 00:18:26.895 --> 00:18:33.302 - It's very hard. It's the product of a historical learning experience. In order for people to behave 00:18:33.302 --> 00:18:40.285 - in this way, they have to work very hard at it. One of the motivations for doing this work is the experience 00:18:40.285 --> 00:18:41.694 - of what happens when, 00:18:42.050 --> 00:18:48.506 - When this fails, what happens is people get very nasty with each other and people begin to feel very 00:18:48.506 --> 00:18:55.472 - vulnerable and threatened. The social contract requires us to treat others even when they are very different 00:18:55.472 --> 00:19:01.992 - from us and even when they subscribe to very different beliefs than our own with a basic respect. And 00:19:01.992 --> 00:19:08.384 - it also requires us to treat our own deep commitments as good for us and perhaps even as ultimately 00:19:08.384 --> 00:19:09.598 - good for everyone. 00:19:10.434 --> 00:19:17.011 - but at the same time as our commitments and not as universal commitments. It requires us to understand 00:19:17.011 --> 00:19:24.035 - that what we hold most dear is not necessarily what others hold most dear. It also requires us to acknowledge 00:19:24.035 --> 00:19:30.548 - our own partiality and fallibility. We are not gods and because none of us is god, we must be wary of 00:19:30.548 --> 00:19:37.125 - condemning others or looking askance at the ways in which they are different or the ways in which they 00:19:37.125 --> 00:19:40.382 - think differently or the ways in which they behave 00:19:40.770 --> 00:19:46.605 - differently. An acceptance of difference is very, very central to the ongoing functioning of this kind 00:19:46.605 --> 00:19:52.723 - of a social contract and it makes very strong demands on people. It requires a great deal of self-restraint 00:19:52.723 --> 00:19:58.445 - and moral self-discipline. It's very easy to imagine that what you think or what you believe or what 00:19:58.445 --> 00:20:04.223 - you worship is clearly what everyone else ought to think or believe or worship and that if they don't 00:20:04.223 --> 00:20:10.398 - believe it, there's something wrong with them and they need to be somehow brought into line. It's very easy. 00:20:11.170 --> 00:20:18.511 - to believe that. It's also very damaging to the kind of society that we have. Now, this idea that there 00:20:18.511 --> 00:20:25.711 - needs to be a respect for others who think differently, who behave differently, and who are different 00:20:25.711 --> 00:20:32.982 - is true in general. And it's especially true with regard to religion, which is perhaps the most deeply 00:20:32.982 --> 00:20:36.158 - held and ultimate commitment for most of us. 00:20:36.354 --> 00:20:42.938 - Because of the depth with which it is held and because of the extent to which it's linked to certain 00:20:42.938 --> 00:20:50.043 - ideas of transcendent authority, it's particularly difficult to live religiously and to practice religiously 00:20:50.043 --> 00:20:57.214 - in an authentic way that also allows one to be accepting of others who are different. But it's indispensable. 00:20:57.314 --> 00:21:03.398 - Now, this kind of awareness that I'm talking about, this ethic of respect, this ethic of civility is 00:21:03.398 --> 00:21:09.905 - not inconsistent with public displays or expressions of religious values or symbols, nor is it inconsistent 00:21:09.905 --> 00:21:16.290 - with a desire to act politically to advance religiously-based moral values. In fact, most of the progress 00:21:16.290 --> 00:21:22.857 - that's been achieved in our country in the past 200 years has been motivated in large part, not exclusively, 00:21:22.857 --> 00:21:27.134 - but in large part by people who were grounded in religious traditions. 00:21:27.554 --> 00:21:33.483 - It's not inconsistent with what I'm talking about, to act on the basis of one's deepest moral values, 00:21:33.483 --> 00:21:39.412 - even when these are religiously based, but it is inconsistent with the effort to institutionalize any 00:21:39.412 --> 00:21:45.689 - particular religious creed or to justify values or policies simply on the basis of the religious foundation 00:21:45.689 --> 00:21:51.909 - or mandate. It is perfectly appropriate for individuals to support and even to justify political positions 00:21:51.909 --> 00:21:56.094 - because of their beliefs about what the Bible or another religious text 00:21:56.706 --> 00:22:04.098 - for sensibility requires. But it is not appropriate for citizens in a democratic society to press political 00:22:04.098 --> 00:22:11.216 - positions solely on the basis of the religious sanction for this presumes what is not the case and what 00:22:11.216 --> 00:22:18.061 - the democratic value of civic pluralism refuses to presume. What it presumes is that other citizens 00:22:18.061 --> 00:22:25.111 - share or must share the same religious values as we subscribe to and that those who believe other than 00:22:25.111 --> 00:22:26.206 - what we believe 00:22:26.626 --> 00:22:33.542 - by this very fact prove themselves not worthy of dignity, respect or political recognition. If we're 00:22:33.542 --> 00:22:40.458 - going to have civic pluralism, we cannot presume that others share or must share our values and that 00:22:40.458 --> 00:22:47.442 - if they don't, there's something wrong with them. I just want to say a couple of other things. I have 00:22:47.442 --> 00:22:54.358 - some more planned but I think I'm just going to can it. The key point here is that it has to do with 00:22:54.358 --> 00:22:55.454 - what we presume 00:22:56.226 --> 00:23:02.320 - and the way in which what we presume affects the way we treat others in the public sphere and how we 00:23:02.320 --> 00:23:08.534 - talk with others and how we talk to others and how we talk about others. The point is not that drawing 00:23:08.534 --> 00:23:14.809 - upon a religious tradition or religious text is suspicious, but the point is that only making reference 00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:19.998 - to what we think is our truth is really a sign of civic disrespect. It's not illegal. 00:23:20.610 --> 00:23:26.508 - Nor do I want to say like it's the most immoral thing that you could do. On the scheme of things, 00:23:26.508 --> 00:23:32.648 - you know, given what's going on in other parts of the world, the kinds of letters that we read in the 00:23:32.648 --> 00:23:38.727 - HT every day which say like the school corporation ought to do this because it says this in Jeremiah 00:23:38.727 --> 00:23:45.046 - 4 or we ought to have this public policy because Thessalonians says why, okay? I'm not saying that these 00:23:45.046 --> 00:23:47.454 - are like profoundly immoral statements. 00:23:47.650 --> 00:23:53.443 - And they're certainly not illegal or unconstitutional statements, but they're contrary to the ethos 00:23:53.443 --> 00:23:59.352 - of civic pluralism, which is central to a democratic society. Not because they articulate sincere and 00:23:59.352 --> 00:24:05.203 - deeply held religious convictions, because they do so in a way that is necessarily alienating to and 00:24:05.203 --> 00:24:11.518 - offensive to, and in fact fails to resonate with other people who think differently. It makes a presumption. 00:24:12.162 --> 00:24:18.204 - It makes the presumption that that text speaks the same way to everybody and that's everybody's text 00:24:18.204 --> 00:24:24.365 - and pointing to that text is a sufficient basis for us to live together and for us to govern ourselves 00:24:24.365 --> 00:24:30.825 - together. That presumption is I think what we need to be wary of and what we need to be constantly thinking 00:24:30.825 --> 00:24:36.807 - about, talking about and I think working against. The public schools are I think one very important 00:24:36.807 --> 00:24:41.054 - domain in a democratic society for doing this kind of civic education. 00:24:41.282 --> 00:24:49.030 - constantly alerting us to the danger of that presumption. Thank you. I have been hanging out with African 00:24:49.030 --> 00:24:56.486 - people for the last few months and what I've learned is that you don't begin your talk until you have 00:24:56.486 --> 00:25:03.868 - greeted everyone in the room and described your appreciation for them. I will limit that to say that 00:25:03.868 --> 00:25:08.254 - Rabbi Mira is my neighbor, my colleague and my good friend. 00:25:08.674 --> 00:25:14.934 - Dr. Franklin has been a big help to me as I have worked with some of these Africans in the last few 00:25:14.934 --> 00:25:21.319 - months and I read Dr. Isaac in the newspaper and before I went back to Weight Watchers, I used to see 00:25:21.319 --> 00:25:27.830 - him every day at Howie's Bagels. But I want all of them to know I'm honored to share this time and this 00:25:27.830 --> 00:25:28.894 - topic with them. 00:25:29.986 --> 00:25:37.093 - In particular, I'm interested in the question, how can we as a community best honor the religious diversity 00:25:37.093 --> 00:25:44.200 - of our citizens and students, and in particular, in a public school forum? I want to speak to this question 00:25:44.200 --> 00:25:51.110 - in three ways, as a Christian, as a Baptist, and as a citizen. Christianity is my fundamental worldview. 00:25:51.110 --> 00:25:56.638 - An ongoing interplay between God and humanity is my basic assumption in all things. 00:25:57.314 --> 00:26:05.549 - In this interplay, God is always courting human beings, and it is a seduction, of course, of sorts. 00:26:05.549 --> 00:26:14.114 - God loves humans, and God wants to be loved by humans. Humans do not initiate in this interplay. Humans 00:26:14.114 --> 00:26:21.278 - only respond. Humans choose to accept God's love. They choose to love God back or not. 00:26:23.202 --> 00:26:29.751 - And as I watch and listen and read the ministry of Jesus, what is apparent to me is that every person 00:26:29.751 --> 00:26:36.365 - chooses freely without coercion. In Christian theology, this is called the priesthood of the believer. 00:26:36.365 --> 00:26:43.300 - The priesthood of the believer means that every human possesses as part of his DNA or her DNA the God-given 00:26:43.300 --> 00:26:49.400 - right to respond to God freely out of his or her own sense of God's call upon his or her life, 00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:51.326 - her conscience, and her will. 00:26:52.482 --> 00:27:00.179 - That means that every human being is in a constant experience of considering how we are going to respond 00:27:00.179 --> 00:27:08.023 - to God. And my basic Christian worldview is that we have the God-given right to make these choices without 00:27:08.023 --> 00:27:15.426 - the coercion of others, particularly those in authority over us, be they kings, presidents, priests, 00:27:15.426 --> 00:27:19.678 - preachers, or second grade teachers. I am also a Baptist. 00:27:20.322 --> 00:27:27.786 - I may be the first Baptist to ever speak at a program sponsored by the list that Mayor read. In those 00:27:27.786 --> 00:27:35.324 - 1600s that Jeff described, my Baptist ancestors, men and women, were among those jailed, executed, and 00:27:35.324 --> 00:27:42.056 - chased out of some of the nicest cities in Europe for refusing to participate in or conform 00:27:42.056 --> 00:27:49.374 - to state-sponsored religion. Baptists were among those, he described, that changed Western culture, 00:27:49.506 --> 00:27:56.105 - into what he described. Those Baptists also got into trouble with religious folks because they refused 00:27:56.105 --> 00:28:03.025 - to sign their creeds, believing that Jesus was the only standard by which they could be judged as faithful. 00:28:03.025 --> 00:28:10.073 - They were a stubborn bunch and many of them were burned at the stake being stubborn. And while my fundamental 00:28:10.073 --> 00:28:14.686 - citizenship is in the kingdom of heaven, I am also an American citizen. 00:28:15.138 --> 00:28:21.879 - And one of the tasks that American citizens have assumed for ourselves is public education. As a people, 00:28:21.879 --> 00:28:28.299 - we have determined that every child shall have free access to the best education our property taxes 00:28:28.299 --> 00:28:34.976 - and our bake sales can buy. And so it is within that publicly funded classroom that my Christian faith, 00:28:34.976 --> 00:28:41.525 - my Baptist identity, and my civic responsibility coalesce. In the realm of civility, children are the 00:28:41.525 --> 00:28:44.478 - least equipped to protect their own freedoms. 00:28:44.770 --> 00:28:51.060 - and in their public school classroom they should not have to. Unfortunately that is not the case and 00:28:51.060 --> 00:28:57.287 - that is particularly not the case at Christmas time. Right now kindergartners are learning to spell 00:28:57.287 --> 00:29:03.639 - reindeer. Third graders are shopping for the voluntary three dollar secret Santa gift exchange. Fifth 00:29:03.639 --> 00:29:09.929 - graders are building gingerbread houses and high schoolers are learning the four part harmony of God 00:29:09.929 --> 00:29:11.486 - rest ye merry gentlemen. 00:29:12.514 --> 00:29:19.179 - I am unconvinced by the suggestion that these are unreligious activities. They are rooted in the stories 00:29:19.179 --> 00:29:25.528 - and the traditions that surround the birth of Jesus. And if my children, who are Baptist preacher's 00:29:25.528 --> 00:29:32.320 - kids who cut their teeth on our wooden activity set, cannot separate these as religious and non-religious, 00:29:32.320 --> 00:29:38.985 - how is a Hindu or a Jewish child going to separate them? Does an eight-year-old realize that her teacher 00:29:38.985 --> 00:29:40.382 - is no longer teaching 00:29:40.674 --> 00:29:47.077 - when she explains that the holiday gift exchange is voluntary? I don't think so. Is that same eight-year-old 00:29:47.077 --> 00:29:53.128 - going to realize that suddenly she is not being evaluated for class participation when she chooses not 00:29:53.128 --> 00:29:59.061 - to participate in the gift exchange? However well intentioned the teachers are, and I know they are, 00:29:59.061 --> 00:30:05.347 - I think a backhanded sort of coercion is at work when public school students experience even the slightest 00:30:05.347 --> 00:30:09.342 - pressure to participate in religious activity they have not chosen. 00:30:10.306 --> 00:30:16.546 - The Christian and the Baptist in me believe that their God-given right to come freely to faith or not 00:30:16.546 --> 00:30:22.909 - has been violated. The citizen in me believes we have failed in our promise made toward fellow citizens 00:30:22.909 --> 00:30:29.089 - called public school children. Which brings up the brass tacks or where the rubber hits the road. We 00:30:29.089 --> 00:30:33.310 - Baptists like to talk of the extreme separation of church and state. 00:30:34.530 --> 00:30:40.417 - You'll know the difference between the extreme separation Baptist and the not extreme by whether or 00:30:40.417 --> 00:30:46.481 - not they have an American flag in their sanctuary. In this case, that would mean that preachers preach 00:30:46.481 --> 00:30:52.545 - and teachers teach. The study of religion as a component of culture has its rightful place in a public 00:30:52.545 --> 00:30:58.491 - school classroom. Connie Austin is a Tri-North teacher who does a beautiful curriculum every October 00:30:58.491 --> 00:31:02.494 - and does a field trip with that. That is appropriate, I do believe. 00:31:03.074 --> 00:31:09.023 - Parochial schools abound. Bloomington has good ones for parents who want their children to be involved 00:31:09.023 --> 00:31:14.798 - in Bible-based curriculum. But in public school, surely there are enough ways to study math without 00:31:14.798 --> 00:31:20.747 - counting Christmas trees and candy canes. And I suspect there are other songs to sing. It can be done. 00:31:20.747 --> 00:31:26.580 - I have seen it done. And every single time it's done, it is the children and all of the children who 00:31:26.580 --> 00:31:27.966 - are winners. Thank you. 00:31:34.722 --> 00:31:41.743 - I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you this evening about Bloomington High School North and what's 00:31:41.743 --> 00:31:49.034 - happening in the other schools. I think we fundamentally believe that schools are a safe place for students 00:31:49.034 --> 00:31:56.189 - to learn and we work very hard to make sure that that environment is maintained regardless of the beliefs 00:31:56.189 --> 00:32:00.510 - that come through our door. We talk about civic responsibility. 00:32:00.642 --> 00:32:08.882 - and that's something that we look to our teachers to provide and to guide and something that we address 00:32:08.882 --> 00:32:17.042 - on a daily basis. But we also have to look to a balance in all the things that we talk about. We bring 00:32:17.042 --> 00:32:25.202 - a wealth of information from our students. Information then can help students grow and learn and share 00:32:25.202 --> 00:32:27.262 - and expand their horizons 00:32:27.618 --> 00:32:35.380 - and be supported in those discussions. We keep emphasizing that we want a safe, civil, and positive 00:32:35.380 --> 00:32:43.219 - learning environment. And in those discussions, when students bring their passion about a variety of 00:32:43.219 --> 00:32:51.135 - issues, it's up to the teachers to be able to work with those issues, talk with the students, educate 00:32:51.135 --> 00:32:52.222 - at all times, 00:32:52.706 --> 00:33:00.669 - to help students appreciate the many different factors that are brought into the classroom and to teach 00:33:00.669 --> 00:33:08.555 - respect. Not just tolerance, but teach ways of collaborating with others in the school, classroom, and 00:33:08.555 --> 00:33:16.594 - in the community to grow as civic and civically minded and responsible individuals. With 1,400 students, 00:33:16.594 --> 00:33:20.958 - I am fortunate enough to have lots of teachable moments. 00:33:21.090 --> 00:33:29.986 - And at Bloomington North, we've had our share of situations where we will question and talk about different 00:33:29.986 --> 00:33:38.470 - issues that are presented to us. But the bottom line, and as the other panelists have pointed out this 00:33:38.470 --> 00:33:46.953 - evening, is that we respect each other and each other's right to feel and believe the way they choose. 00:33:46.953 --> 00:33:49.342 - And when it comes to school, 00:33:49.634 --> 00:33:57.461 - Coming into the building means that we have an opportunity to discuss those issues in positive ways. 00:33:57.461 --> 00:34:05.289 - We can't control what's happening out in the world. We can't control all the things that are said in 00:34:05.289 --> 00:34:13.116 - the community, the protests, the arguments. What we can control is what happens in our building. And 00:34:13.116 --> 00:34:19.006 - we continually emphasize to stop, talk to each other, listen to each other, 00:34:19.138 --> 00:34:28.073 - and grow with the information. This isn't a place to judge, it's not a place to criticize, but it is 00:34:28.073 --> 00:34:36.477 - a place to learn, it is a place to grow, and it is a place to question when there is confusion 00:34:36.477 --> 00:34:45.677 - or misunderstanding, regardless of religion, race, any issue that comes into the school. We go through, 00:34:45.677 --> 00:34:48.862 - with students they have deeply held 00:34:49.026 --> 00:34:56.172 - passions, not so much values, but passions. And to funnel that into positive energy and positive ways 00:34:56.172 --> 00:35:03.668 - of approaching things, it takes a lot of support from teachers. And we've tried to find ways of channeling 00:35:03.668 --> 00:35:11.025 - those passions, whether it's working together to build a house, whether it's working together to develop 00:35:11.025 --> 00:35:17.470 - a program that's inclusive of all individuals in the building, whether it's a student forum 00:35:18.306 --> 00:35:27.178 - where we talk about how to make the school a better place. We channel those energies because fundamentally, 00:35:27.178 --> 00:35:35.804 - we're not looking at differences and ways of excluding people. We're looking at ways of including people 00:35:35.804 --> 00:35:44.429 - and making sure that within the building, everyone feels welcome and safe. We've had lots of experiences 00:35:44.429 --> 00:35:48.126 - at North where things have crossed the line. 00:35:48.674 --> 00:35:56.526 - And we've always wanted to have lots of discussions about those various issues. But we emphasize repeatedly 00:35:56.526 --> 00:36:03.796 - in a civic, in a school where we emphasize civility, concern, and care for others, communication is 00:36:03.796 --> 00:36:11.067 - the most important factor. And regardless of the disagreements, bringing those disagreements to the 00:36:11.067 --> 00:36:18.046 - table and talking through those issues is the best way for all of us to grow in this community. 00:36:27.394 --> 00:36:34.598 - to thank all three of you for being here, for bringing your expertise here, and for staying here now. 00:36:34.598 --> 00:36:41.873 - What's going to happen now is a community discussion. And so if you have something to say, please come 00:36:41.873 --> 00:36:48.935 - up, find a microphone. You might want to share a comment, a question for one of our panelists, or a 00:36:48.935 --> 00:36:53.950 - question for the gathering at large. Is that all right? Jenny, please. 00:36:58.690 --> 00:37:06.843 - Hi, my name's Jennifer Bass, and I'm a concerned citizen and a parent, and I appreciate... They're just 00:37:06.843 --> 00:37:15.389 - for the... They're for the videotape and not for us, so if you're having trouble hearing, just let everybody 00:37:15.389 --> 00:37:23.699 - know. Okay, I can speak loudly. I appreciate everything that you all have said tonight, and my experience 00:37:23.699 --> 00:37:27.070 - has mostly been in the school in this past 00:37:27.170 --> 00:37:36.570 - semester actually, I feel like in the school system I've just become very aware of the majority rule 00:37:36.570 --> 00:37:46.063 - mentality of the leadership in my children's school. And I've never been quite so aware of it before. 00:37:46.063 --> 00:37:54.718 - Maybe it's never been so dominated by white Christian children as it is itself, high school. 00:37:54.850 --> 00:38:02.516 - And I think that the smaller the minority, the easier it is for the teachers to not really understand 00:38:02.516 --> 00:38:10.031 - that there are other children. I don't think anyone does anything deliberately. But there have been 00:38:10.031 --> 00:38:17.246 - three or four actual situations that I can report this last year. And we've made lots of waves. 00:38:17.634 --> 00:38:26.044 - You know, it's hard when you're a few parents making a lot of waves. But my question is for you, how 00:38:26.044 --> 00:38:29.374 - do we get the leadership in the schools 00:38:29.570 --> 00:38:36.387 - to help the teachers understand what this is all about because the teachers are coming from our own 00:38:36.387 --> 00:38:43.478 - community. They've been educated the same way in a very homogeneous situation and I don't blame anyone. 00:38:43.478 --> 00:38:50.431 - No one does anything deliberately to hurt any other children but I've seen it several times this year 00:38:50.431 --> 00:38:57.726 - and I'm just wondering what can we do to have the leadership do some diversity training with our teachers? 00:38:59.554 --> 00:39:07.301 - I think the kinds of things we need to look at and as I said I'm an educator first and that's whether 00:39:07.301 --> 00:39:14.895 - it's working with teachers or students and I think it's very important that we address these issues 00:39:14.895 --> 00:39:17.022 - very directly. As a teacher 00:39:17.538 --> 00:39:24.503 - We need to remind the faculty that we have, we're celebrating, we finished celebrating Ramadan, Hanukkah, 00:39:24.503 --> 00:39:31.666 - we have Kwanzaa and it's a matter of educating all, everyone involved in the school that all these different 00:39:31.666 --> 00:39:38.500 - things are going on. When the choir teacher talks about I'm going to sing Christmas carols, well that's 00:39:38.500 --> 00:39:44.414 - fine but what else are you going to add to the program to make sure that it's a balanced, 00:39:44.578 --> 00:39:52.782 - and that all students and cultures are represented in the presentation. But we need to do it in such 00:39:52.782 --> 00:40:01.392 - a way that it is not, we don't immediately get resistance. I don't want to stand up in front of a faculty 00:40:01.392 --> 00:40:10.164 - and say, we're going to have diversity training now because the wall goes up and it makes it very difficult 00:40:10.164 --> 00:40:13.982 - to really get to the place that we need to be. 00:40:14.178 --> 00:40:23.030 - as a faculty and as a school community. So it's a matter of education on a daily basis from little things 00:40:23.030 --> 00:40:31.631 - to students working with faculty members, students making presentations at faculty meetings and really 00:40:31.631 --> 00:40:40.399 - bringing it home to understand what does it feel like for a student to go to school when X is happening. 00:40:40.399 --> 00:40:42.654 - And that cuts even across, 00:40:43.170 --> 00:40:51.700 - Veterans Day celebrations, you know, having maybe 30 different countries represented, how do those students 00:40:51.700 --> 00:40:59.914 - feel as we're doing an incredibly patriotic presentation? How do we make sure that things are inclusive 00:40:59.914 --> 00:41:08.129 - and not exclusive? And it's a matter of ongoing education, not just for the students, but for everybody 00:41:08.129 --> 00:41:10.814 - involved in the school community. 00:41:10.946 --> 00:41:16.988 - One of the things, and I guess this is sort of where we would part company, because part of what I would 00:41:16.988 --> 00:41:23.203 - suggest is rather than try to do every single religious piece, do none of it. My husband is a IU professor. 00:41:23.203 --> 00:41:29.130 - I don't know if you get this list, but he gets the list at the beginning of the school year of all the 00:41:29.130 --> 00:41:34.942 - religious holidays. And he said, the first day of school should say no class for anyone if I'm going 00:41:34.942 --> 00:41:40.926 - to honor every single religious holiday. So he gives everybody one free Friday for a quiz, and he says, 00:41:41.570 --> 00:41:48.609 - You know, the Jewish kids can take the Christian holiday if that's better for you, but, you know, this 00:41:48.609 --> 00:41:55.511 - is how we have to handle it. It's stressful for me when we compare. I get frustrated because when we 00:41:55.511 --> 00:42:02.413 - say, well, Christians have Christmas and Jewish people have Hanukkah, well, those are not comparable 00:42:02.413 --> 00:42:09.315 - religious experiences for those two groups of students. And so I don't see how the Jewish kids don't 00:42:09.315 --> 00:42:10.750 - feel slighted still. 00:42:11.074 --> 00:42:18.471 - on that. Easter is our greatest or our highest holy day, but it's not the best retail holiday. So we 00:42:18.471 --> 00:42:25.868 - don't get two weeks then. And they don't put Easter on the front of the Lays potato chip bag because 00:42:25.868 --> 00:42:33.412 - nobody buys potato chips for Easter. We only buy those for Christmas. But the point being, the simpler 00:42:33.412 --> 00:42:39.198 - solution for me, but I'm not a principal, is eliminate all of it like they do. 00:42:39.810 --> 00:42:45.654 - at some schools, our preschool, for example, eliminates all of it. It works beautifully. Now, where 00:42:45.654 --> 00:42:51.557 - it's child-generated curriculum, when you talk about students' passions, that becomes another forum, 00:42:51.557 --> 00:42:57.518 - I think, and another discussion when children are bringing to the classroom, you know, their stories. 00:42:57.518 --> 00:43:03.362 - But that would be the piece of that I would want included into that question. If I could just speak 00:43:03.362 --> 00:43:08.446 - briefly to it, I feel kind of like somewhere between the two of you on the question of 00:43:08.738 --> 00:43:14.882 - to what extent should diversity be represented in school activities and to what extent should it be, 00:43:14.882 --> 00:43:21.087 - should certain kinds of differences be eliminated in the name of just a commonality? You know, should 00:43:21.087 --> 00:43:27.414 - there be exemptions for every kind of possible experience or not? You know, I would just say two things 00:43:27.414 --> 00:43:33.619 - about that. The first is that we need to distinguish between kind of common curricular issues and the 00:43:33.619 --> 00:43:36.478 - way that teachers make exemptions for students 00:43:36.930 --> 00:43:42.925 - I make all kinds of exemptions for students if they're sick, if their grandmother dies, whatever. And 00:43:42.925 --> 00:43:48.803 - it seems to me it's possible for any individual teacher to be maximally flexible and sensitive to a 00:43:48.803 --> 00:43:54.680 - whole range of student concerns, including religion and lots of other things, and at the same time, 00:43:54.680 --> 00:44:00.616 - you know, adhere to some sense of a common curriculum and certain common expectations. You know, the 00:44:00.616 --> 00:44:03.614 - other thing that I want to say is that in addition 00:44:03.810 --> 00:44:09.559 - to asking the question how does diversity get represented in the school, which is a very important question. 00:44:09.559 --> 00:44:14.938 - When do we represent it and are we representing diversity in a truly diverse way? When is it best not 00:44:14.938 --> 00:44:20.581 - to represent it? You know, is it appropriate to represent it by simply having a kind of additive approach? 00:44:20.581 --> 00:44:25.908 - Well, if you do this, then you have to do this, this, this, this, this. You know, the other question 00:44:25.908 --> 00:44:29.758 - is what content and seriousness we give to the idea of a common culture. 00:44:30.082 --> 00:44:35.546 - So that the question is not simply how we represent what distinguishes us from one another, but how 00:44:35.546 --> 00:44:41.338 - we understand and construct what we have in common. You know, what does it mean to be an American citizen 00:44:41.338 --> 00:44:47.075 - or to be a citizen? You know, what are the freedoms that we enjoy? How did we get them? How do different 00:44:47.075 --> 00:44:52.540 - diverse people from a whole variety of experiences struggle with each other, against each other, to 00:44:52.540 --> 00:44:58.277 - create a set of freedoms that we all enjoy and can appreciate? That's not a question of how we represent 00:44:58.277 --> 00:44:58.878 - diversity. 00:44:59.522 --> 00:45:04.791 - but a question of how we understand our commonality as citizens. And it seems to me that it's equally 00:45:04.791 --> 00:45:10.422 - important to do that as it is to worry about the diversity question. The diversity question in my experience 00:45:10.422 --> 00:45:15.691 - in the public schools generally comes up when you have this boundary crossing problem, like something 00:45:15.691 --> 00:45:21.115 - that seems to cross the line of separation of church and state or something that seems to offend someone 00:45:21.115 --> 00:45:26.435 - is done. And then the question is how do we manage that most effectively? It seems to me that like the 00:45:26.435 --> 00:45:27.262 - nature of life, 00:45:27.426 --> 00:45:32.788 - is that there's constant crossing of boundaries, transgressions, offenses, and what we need to do is 00:45:32.788 --> 00:45:38.309 - have a robust idea of civic education that teaches us how to deal with all of these things so that what 00:45:38.309 --> 00:45:43.672 - it means to be a citizen is not simply kind of like waving to a flag or saying yes or no to whatever 00:45:43.672 --> 00:45:46.910 - the president says, you know, but that has a richer meaning. 00:45:53.762 --> 00:46:02.445 - If I may broaden the discussion beyond public schools because we have voucher programs that are increasingly 00:46:02.445 --> 00:46:05.950 - found to meet constitutional challenges and 00:46:06.082 --> 00:46:13.282 - we have lots of institutions that are not exactly state, but they're directly or indirectly state-funded 00:46:13.282 --> 00:46:20.276 - and nonetheless faith-based. These institutions are likely to be growing. The question is, in between 00:46:20.276 --> 00:46:27.202 - the desire to communicate diversity and teach and train people in habitual use of mutual respect and 00:46:27.202 --> 00:46:34.197 - so forth, there is the countervailing desire to have homogeneity, to protect a certain focus on a set 00:46:34.197 --> 00:46:36.048 - of values, and so you have 00:46:36.048 --> 00:46:42.247 - You have in New York City Yeshiva University, and you have Fordham University, and you have schools, 00:46:42.247 --> 00:46:48.569 - and you have Catholic schools, and so on. And these particular institutions, of course, have something 00:46:48.569 --> 00:46:54.707 - else in mind and can be seen in the mosaic of similar institutions to, in fact, represent a certain 00:46:54.707 --> 00:47:00.906 - form of diversity. But I just want to submit that it is not easy to separate state from other social 00:47:00.906 --> 00:47:06.000 - functions. The idea of simple-minded separation of church and state doesn't define 00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:13.947 - any major social function that is exercised in society with or without direct government funding has 00:47:13.947 --> 00:47:22.209 - certain elements of shaping our collective social life and that gives it a role that is akin to a public 00:47:22.209 --> 00:47:30.077 - policy, a public face, a public utterance, a public statement. So what I like particularly Jeff and 00:47:30.077 --> 00:47:35.742 - Annette to address is the question, do you accept a vision of diversity 00:47:35.842 --> 00:47:42.101 - that consists of mosaic stones that are quite homogeneous in their own training and their experience. 00:47:42.101 --> 00:47:48.237 - Does that somehow add up to a tapestry that you find agreeable? Or what would you do to prevent the 00:47:48.237 --> 00:47:54.434 - emergence of such an alternative model? Because the public school model is a monolithic model by its 00:47:54.434 --> 00:48:00.816 - conception. And rightly so, perhaps. And I'm certainly not trying to make a point one way or the other, 00:48:00.816 --> 00:48:03.454 - but just to raise this. Thank you so much. 00:48:06.146 --> 00:48:13.861 - Your question is very profound and I agree with the sentiment behind your question and I offer an overly 00:48:13.861 --> 00:48:21.356 - simplified account of the origins of the idea of religious liberty. We don't live in the 17th century 00:48:21.356 --> 00:48:28.851 - anymore and in all kinds of ways in the 21st century we have interfaces between state and society for 00:48:28.851 --> 00:48:30.174 - good and ill that 00:48:30.370 --> 00:48:36.852 - enormously complicate the model of individual liberty, religious liberty, and otherwise that emerged 00:48:36.852 --> 00:48:40.574 - in the early modern period. I believe, first of all, that 00:48:40.738 --> 00:48:45.689 - I believe in associational freedom, but I think your question cuts deeper than, it's easy to say, well, 00:48:45.689 --> 00:48:50.307 - these things, people are free to create Fordham University or Yeshiva University or Yeshivas or, 00:48:50.307 --> 00:48:55.210 - you know, religious institutions. The question is how they function in a democratic society. Certainly 00:48:55.210 --> 00:49:00.304 - they ought to be tolerated and people ought to be free to form them. I think the real hard and interesting 00:49:00.304 --> 00:49:04.350 - question has to do with the extent to which they're publicly subsidized as they are. 00:49:04.546 --> 00:49:09.970 - And I personally am not against the public subsidization of a whole range of civil society institutions, 00:49:09.970 --> 00:49:15.239 - including faith-based institutions, okay? And in fact, I've done some work on the area of faith-based 00:49:15.239 --> 00:49:20.405 - initiatives. I mean, you ask a complicated question, I don't want to kind of go too deeply into it. 00:49:20.405 --> 00:49:25.675 - The really interesting discussions about faith-based initiatives, for example, that raise the general 00:49:25.675 --> 00:49:30.014 - question, when is it appropriate for government to subsidize in some way or another 00:49:31.266 --> 00:49:37.518 - a faith-based community kitchen or a faith-based employment center or a rehabilitation center for drug 00:49:37.518 --> 00:49:43.102 - addicts, et cetera. I mean, there are certain criteria that are taken seriously in the law. 00:49:43.266 --> 00:49:48.225 - And that are also, by the way, even taken seriously in the charitable choice provisions of 00:49:48.225 --> 00:49:53.293 - federal legislation that have to do with to what extent these institutions adhere to federal 00:49:53.293 --> 00:49:58.579 - nondiscrimination law. Do they require the recipients of the service that's being subsidized to, 00:49:58.579 --> 00:50:04.247 - you know, to be a member of the religious institution that's providing the service? It seems to me that 00:50:04.247 --> 00:50:09.969 - it is important to recognize that a whole range of institutions serve positive functions in a democracy. 00:50:09.969 --> 00:50:12.094 - We need to have spaces of homogeneity. 00:50:12.578 --> 00:50:18.820 - And they need to be not only valued but sometimes supported. But they only should be supported when 00:50:18.820 --> 00:50:25.062 - they're consistent with certain basic democratic values. When they're not, I believe, people should 00:50:25.062 --> 00:50:31.491 - be free. If you want to have, you know, if you want to have a social service agency, for example, that 00:50:31.491 --> 00:50:38.046 - discriminates against, let's just say the Boy Scouts may be a good example, you know, that discriminates 00:50:38.046 --> 00:50:39.294 - against gay people, 00:50:39.938 --> 00:50:44.951 - Okay, on freedom of association grounds within certain parameters, you may be free to do that, but such 00:50:44.951 --> 00:50:49.867 - institutions, in my opinion, are not to be subsidized by a democratic state, which is in the business 00:50:49.867 --> 00:50:54.783 - of maintaining certain basic principles of equality and mutual respect, in my opinion. So it seems to 00:50:54.783 --> 00:50:59.747 - me there need to be certain lines that are drawn in certain parameters. There are certain basic values 00:50:59.747 --> 00:51:02.302 - that need to govern how we think about these things. 00:51:04.290 --> 00:51:11.771 - Tony Campolo is a fairly well-known, in Baptist circles, Baptist preacher and a teacher at Eastern Baptist 00:51:11.771 --> 00:51:18.833 - College, and he told a group of Baptist pastors in North Carolina last spring that we should be very 00:51:18.833 --> 00:51:26.105 - wary of faith-based initiatives because it's like mixing manure and ice cream. It won't hurt the manure 00:51:26.105 --> 00:51:33.726 - that much, but it'll ruin, ruin the ice cream. His point being, of course, that that is probably a one-sided 00:51:34.306 --> 00:51:42.066 - approach. Government is the winner because we, as the church, assume some of their liability and debt. 00:51:42.066 --> 00:51:49.902 - Now, as a Christian who believes I ought to be serving the poor, serving the needy, it's a debt I ought 00:51:49.902 --> 00:51:57.662 - to be carrying anyway, so I shouldn't need that initiative. I am very, very leery, probably more leery 00:51:57.662 --> 00:52:03.614 - of faith-based initiatives just because I know where that can go and the abuse 00:52:03.874 --> 00:52:11.552 - possible on the part of the church from the abuse of other people. I said something in my presentation 00:52:11.552 --> 00:52:19.082 - that I'm now reconsidering and that a case in point that I think you're referring to. I believe that 00:52:19.082 --> 00:52:26.760 - public school is our country's best opportunity to be the kind of society that we want to be. A public 00:52:26.760 --> 00:52:33.022 - school classroom is the labyrinth of American culture that we all imagine could be. 00:52:33.826 --> 00:52:39.765 - But one of the things that's happening in families like my family, conservative Christian families, 00:52:39.765 --> 00:52:45.942 - is that they are taking their children out of public school and either putting them in parochial school 00:52:45.942 --> 00:52:51.881 - or homeschooling them. They have academic reasons for doing that and social reasons for doing that. 00:52:51.881 --> 00:52:58.177 - Taken to its logical extreme, that ends up with what I think you're describing, a society where everybody 00:52:58.177 --> 00:53:03.166 - is free as long as they hang out with people who believe exactly what they believe. 00:53:03.714 --> 00:53:12.356 - Well, you know who ends up left there. It's the kids who are not being sort of cared for and raised 00:53:12.356 --> 00:53:21.516 - by people who have any interest in how they grow up. And public school is those kids' best hope, I think. 00:53:21.516 --> 00:53:28.862 - And so I think that, I don't know if I'm getting at what you're saying, I think that 00:53:29.506 --> 00:53:36.161 - I think that parochial schools and those kinds of things are everybody's free choice. But I think that 00:53:36.161 --> 00:53:42.622 - carried to their logical extreme, they create a society that nobody really probably wants. And that 00:53:42.622 --> 00:53:49.342 - is where we all retreat and live in our own little sort of hovel. If it's a social hovel or a political 00:53:49.342 --> 00:53:56.062 - hovel or an ethnic hovel, I don't know what kind of hovel it is. But we don't have to interact anymore. 00:53:56.994 --> 00:54:04.753 - When I grew up in Bedford, 30 miles from here, I knew no Jewish people, and I knew one family of African 00:54:04.753 --> 00:54:12.143 - Americans, and they had three boys, all brothers, and we all thought that we were the most racially 00:54:12.143 --> 00:54:19.681 - open and diverse community we'd ever been in. That turned out actually not to be true. And, you know, 00:54:19.681 --> 00:54:26.110 - my children are growing up in a much different arrangement, and have the opportunities 00:54:26.242 --> 00:54:38.229 - four and five and six years old that I didn't have until I was out of seminary until I was 25 and 26 00:54:38.229 --> 00:54:50.453 - years old because of where they go to school and where they live. So I don't know if that touches that 00:54:50.453 --> 00:54:54.014 - or not at all. I go to South. 00:54:54.914 --> 00:55:02.287 - And before that, I went to Jackson Creek Middle School. And in all honesty, I really need to say that, 00:55:02.287 --> 00:55:09.659 - I mean, not to demean your very intense efforts on combating these problems, but I don't think they're 00:55:09.659 --> 00:55:16.817 - that big a problem in elementary schools. Some people make them out to be, or in middle school, and 00:55:16.817 --> 00:55:24.190 - especially not in high school. First of all, no matter what you do to improve the diversity in school, 00:55:24.514 --> 00:55:30.750 - kids are always going to encounter these obstacles in life because you go out in the world outside of 00:55:30.750 --> 00:55:36.864 - school and you see the department stores with the Christmas sales and you see all the houses around 00:55:36.864 --> 00:55:42.978 - you lit up with the Christmas lights. I'm not exactly sure why Jews don't maybe think about putting 00:55:42.978 --> 00:55:49.275 - up blue and white lights for Hanukkah, but they don't. Anyway, you see Christianity all around you and 00:55:49.275 --> 00:55:52.638 - when you're a non-Christian, you can't escape from it. 00:55:52.866 --> 00:55:59.300 - America was founded as a Christian nation, and that's the way the founding fathers intended it to be. 00:55:59.300 --> 00:56:05.797 - And although it's a nation of a lot of diversity, Christianity is such an integral part of our culture 00:56:05.797 --> 00:56:12.609 - that there's really no getting around it. And instead of an effort to really improve religious and cultural 00:56:12.609 --> 00:56:18.980 - diversity in school by the kind of additive approach that you've discussed, the best way to do it is 00:56:18.980 --> 00:56:21.566 - to honestly incorporate intense cultural 00:56:21.986 --> 00:56:29.449 - education into the history curriculums. And instead of teaching about the Islamic faith, for example, 00:56:29.449 --> 00:56:36.838 - as a faith, instead the Arab culture should be presented to students. And especially in this day and 00:56:36.838 --> 00:56:40.350 - age where Arabs are getting a bad rap big time. 00:56:40.450 --> 00:56:47.127 - by the media. It's important for students to see the Arab empires of the past and see the glory that 00:56:47.127 --> 00:56:54.003 - they once had and that in many ways many of them still have. And the truth is that the majority of Arab 00:56:54.003 --> 00:57:00.681 - countries are not terrorist countries. And the majority of Arabs and Islamists are not terrorists at 00:57:00.681 --> 00:57:07.292 - all. And honestly, I don't know anybody that celebrates Kwanzaa. And I know many blacks and they're 00:57:07.292 --> 00:57:08.350 - all Christians. 00:57:08.450 --> 00:57:14.292 - There are people out there I think instead of simply putting up Kwanzaa decorations everywhere, maybe 00:57:14.292 --> 00:57:20.249 - the history classes should make an effort to show us what Kwanzaa is because I'm not sure anybody knows 00:57:20.249 --> 00:57:26.034 - what it is. I think that's important because I'm curious. I'd like to know. No, I see they have this 00:57:26.034 --> 00:57:31.761 - thing that looks like a menorah that I see sometimes somehow connected to Kwanzaa. I'd like to know 00:57:31.761 --> 00:57:37.374 - more about this. In any case, in conclusion, all I want to say is that it's important to kind of, 00:57:37.506 --> 00:57:43.490 - incorporate religious diversity into schools but the planet is not going to explode if it isn't and 00:57:43.490 --> 00:57:49.593 - I am 16 years old and I grew up without any Jewish influence in school and I didn't die I didn't kill 00:57:49.593 --> 00:57:55.636 - myself I'm Jewish and I'm proud of it and I know I'm Jewish I don't care about anybody else and what 00:57:55.636 --> 00:58:01.919 - they want me to be I mean school didn't have any effect on me there and I mean it didn't have any effect 00:58:01.919 --> 00:58:06.526 - on most of these people I mean all of you I'm sure grew up in an environment 00:58:06.882 --> 00:58:12.390 - where Christianity was the norm, especially in school, and if you weren't Christian, okay, you felt 00:58:12.390 --> 00:58:18.062 - alienated sometimes, all right, then you grow up, you know who you are, and you're secure in that, and 00:58:18.062 --> 00:58:23.735 - it's important to be secure in what you are. I mean, that's all I really have to say. Also, to address 00:58:23.735 --> 00:58:29.573 - the question of gays in the Boy Scouts, I'd like to point out that straight men have a much bigger chance 00:58:29.573 --> 00:58:32.382 - of molesting kids than gays do. Anyway, thank you. 00:58:39.490 --> 00:58:54.040 - I need to do my job as a Christian pastor. That's a good word for me. Dan, please, yeah. I really want 00:58:54.040 --> 00:59:09.438 - to address this to Dr. Isaacs. You're a bit about respect and allowing one another to be what we are without 00:59:10.082 --> 00:59:18.216 - without being violent to one another. I'm sure you read recently, probably sick of having read all the 00:59:18.216 --> 00:59:26.509 - commentary about the recent report of the decline in the Jewish population of the country and the world. 00:59:26.509 --> 00:59:35.038 - And many religions, well especially Christianity and Islam at least, are very much interested in converting 00:59:35.038 --> 00:59:38.750 - the world to their perspective. So one part of 00:59:38.978 --> 00:59:46.518 - the nature of religion, of deeply held values, is the spread of this. And even as Jews, we're concerned 00:59:46.518 --> 00:59:53.841 - not so much with spreading, but at least with not shrinking any. How do you incorporate this idea of 00:59:53.841 --> 01:00:01.091 - letting people be what they want to be, and yet including the fact that one of the things that they 01:00:01.091 --> 01:00:08.414 - want to be is evangelists? That's a hard thing for me to come to terms with. I don't know what to... 01:00:08.674 --> 01:00:16.217 - I don't know what to say about that. I'd like to hear your perspective on that. Well, Dan knows me as 01:00:16.217 --> 01:00:23.686 - Jeff. I'll respond as Jeff, not Dr. Isaac, OK? I am Jewish. Dan knows that. That guy was my son. I'm 01:00:23.686 --> 01:00:31.525 - concerned about all kinds of evangelism. I guess as a Jew, I'm concerned about evangelism. But I'm mainly 01:00:31.525 --> 01:00:36.702 - concerned about just the evangelical impulse in many aspects of life. 01:00:36.802 --> 01:00:44.796 - And I don't know that I personally am more revolted by certain ways in which Christians seek to evangelize 01:00:44.796 --> 01:00:52.641 - Jews than I am by the ways in which certain kinds of political ideologues of the left or the right might 01:00:52.641 --> 01:01:00.261 - seek to evangelize on behalf of their points of view. It is a fundamental paradox of, let's just say, 01:01:00.261 --> 01:01:06.686 - the modern conception of freedom that our society is constructed on the basis of that 01:01:06.850 --> 01:01:13.655 - On the one hand, we talk about these values of pluralism and respect, equal liberty, whatever. On the 01:01:13.655 --> 01:01:20.660 - other hand, the freedom that people enjoy also gives them the freedom to evangelize. And the evangelical 01:01:20.660 --> 01:01:27.598 - impulse is not inherently, it's not understood by its practitioners as oppressive at all. In fact, it's 01:01:27.598 --> 01:01:34.270 - liberating. There's a term that the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, he called killing with compassion. 01:01:34.434 --> 01:01:39.006 - You know, the evangelical impulse is like, please let me save you. You know, please, let me save you. 01:01:39.006 --> 01:01:43.578 - You know, I love you, let me save you, please, you know. But I don't have a solution to that problem. 01:01:43.578 --> 01:01:48.240 - It seems to me that there we have a tension between certain understandings of religious practice, which 01:01:48.240 --> 01:01:52.767 - are very important in the culture, and then other kinds of civic values, which, quite honestly, have 01:01:52.767 --> 01:01:57.518 - some importance in the culture, but probably aren't as important as I wish they would be, and Bloomington 01:01:57.518 --> 01:02:02.046 - United wishes they would be, and some other people in this room wish they would be. And what we need 01:02:02.046 --> 01:02:02.942 - to do is to promote 01:02:03.074 --> 01:02:09.409 - those values, but it doesn't seem to me there's any kind of shield that we can invoke to protect ourselves 01:02:09.409 --> 01:02:15.625 - from the evangelical impulse. And it is true on some level that the freedom that particularly Christians 01:02:15.625 --> 01:02:21.841 - in this country have, certain kinds of Christians, to imagine that people who don't share their religion 01:02:21.841 --> 01:02:27.820 - are damned, and that only if they save us, you know, through various means, including coercive ones, 01:02:27.820 --> 01:02:30.366 - can we not be damned. That impulse is like 01:02:30.882 --> 01:02:36.944 - on like a deep level, a deep cultural level at odds with certain aspects of democratic citizenship. 01:02:36.944 --> 01:02:43.066 - On the other hand, the desire to extirpate that or ban that or abolish that or prohibit that is also 01:02:43.066 --> 01:02:49.249 - profoundly inconsistent with the values of a democratic society. And so what we live with is a world, 01:02:49.249 --> 01:02:53.310 - you know, again, I'm going to quote Adam Kent Isaac, a world that, 01:02:54.562 --> 01:03:00.482 - You know, that presents us with all kinds of insecurity and vulnerability. There's no quick fix. There's 01:03:00.482 --> 01:03:06.571 - nothing that we can draw upon to kind of guarantee us that we can be who we want to be or protect ourselves 01:03:06.571 --> 01:03:12.266 - from others. We need to learn how to interact better with others. We need to develop thick skins and 01:03:12.266 --> 01:03:18.130 - at the same time develop a spirit of generosity that I think, you know, is in short supply. Wasn't that 01:03:18.130 --> 01:03:22.302 - flowery? I'm not sure I said anything in response to your question. Yeah. 01:03:24.674 --> 01:03:31.344 - as confused about it as I am. Oh, yeah. I had to make a profession of it. I want to invite people to 01:03:31.344 --> 01:03:38.345 - respond to the comments that were from the floor, as well as to the panelists. I mean, I'm still thinking 01:03:38.345 --> 01:03:45.147 - about the various points that Adam made. And we'll talk about the blue and white lights later. But I'm 01:03:45.147 --> 01:03:51.751 - thinking now, I didn't know that it was Father and Son until he spoke. And then I knew. I was like, 01:03:51.751 --> 01:03:53.534 - of course they're related. 01:03:54.050 --> 01:04:09.223 - Not at all. Not at all. But he and I were going to have a talk. It was wonderful. Aren't you supposed 01:04:09.223 --> 01:04:22.462 - to be watching your sister now? A couple of reflections on the concept of evangelicalism 01:04:23.074 --> 01:04:31.063 - I might be accused by some of you of being a practitioner myself. But I think if we look back to Abraham 01:04:31.063 --> 01:04:39.280 - and Moses, you could say that Moses was in front of Pharaoh, that he was being evangelical in his practice. 01:04:39.280 --> 01:04:46.964 - And there is a very dynamic, creative process in the major divine religions, which are coming in and 01:04:46.964 --> 01:04:52.062 - grabbing hold of the existing thought process, the existing order. 01:04:52.418 --> 01:05:01.039 - and putting some heavy muscle to it. Now the issue is whether we're going to kill ourselves or do we 01:05:01.039 --> 01:05:09.659 - say everybody puts the cards on the table and each person has a right to pick up which cards to pick 01:05:09.659 --> 01:05:18.195 - up. As an evangelical, I would like at least one of the statements to be on the table is that there 01:05:18.195 --> 01:05:21.182 - are lots of kinds of evangelicals. 01:05:21.698 --> 01:05:29.816 - And there are those, like myself, I hope, who attempt to practice that piece of our faith. And evangelism 01:05:29.816 --> 01:05:37.781 - is a core piece of Christian life for me. But it is possible to do that with respect, without violating 01:05:37.781 --> 01:05:45.975 - the integrity of another person. And in the context of what I described as the priesthood of the believer, 01:05:45.975 --> 01:05:50.494 - and it becomes my privilege to share faith back and forth, 01:05:51.266 --> 01:05:59.188 - together, you share, I share, but both of us walk away from that free and with our integrity intact. 01:05:59.188 --> 01:06:07.110 - And so, you know, I don't want to take responsibility for people who don't do that, but I also don't 01:06:07.110 --> 01:06:15.424 - want to deny that, you know, that I, too, am an evangelical of that. If I could just, I honor what you're 01:06:15.424 --> 01:06:21.150 - saying, and also Dan's comment, Dan's comment, Dan just spoke, is also a 01:06:21.666 --> 01:06:28.656 - Dan Ensloh, not Dan Price, also another profound Dan, is a very important comment. I mean, religion, 01:06:28.656 --> 01:06:35.716 - even in its evangelical forms, is a very powerful thing. And, you know, it has power to do great good 01:06:35.716 --> 01:06:42.706 - as well as not, you know? And I do think that we need to learn and think more deeply about practices 01:06:42.706 --> 01:06:49.835 - of respect and acceptance of difference, but I also think we need to learn about how to have a thicker 01:06:49.835 --> 01:06:50.942 - skin, you know? 01:06:51.074 --> 01:06:55.850 - And I'm not afraid of you. I mean, you know, I mean, in other words, I, you know, you, you know, be 01:06:55.850 --> 01:07:00.244 - evangelical. That's okay. I can deal with that. You know, I could also deal with, you know, 01:07:00.244 --> 01:07:05.164 - passion in, in, in, in public life is a very important thing. It's also the source of a lot of justice 01:07:05.164 --> 01:07:10.370 - movements, you know, and sometimes it becomes like overwhelming, but you know, any love can be overwhelming. 01:07:10.370 --> 01:07:15.433 - Anything good can be overwhelming. We have to learn how to kind of manage it, but I don't think we should 01:07:15.433 --> 01:07:17.630 - try to, to eliminate it. So there, all these, 01:07:17.730 --> 01:07:23.613 - very powerful forces in our society need to somehow be brought into some synergy which isn't destructive. 01:07:23.613 --> 01:07:29.552 - Your way of being evangelical seems to me perfectly hospitable with the pluralism of a democratic society. 01:07:29.552 --> 01:07:35.268 - There are other ways of being evangelical which are, you know, which are not as hospitable and they're 01:07:35.268 --> 01:07:40.929 - also part of our world. We need to figure out ways of dealing with them. That's one of the reasons we 01:07:40.929 --> 01:07:42.206 - have events like this. 01:07:54.754 --> 01:08:02.170 - This recently happened to me and I'd love some responses. A parent that I know was telling me about 01:08:02.170 --> 01:08:10.031 - their glee in visiting a classroom in December where unlike all of the other elementary school classrooms 01:08:10.031 --> 01:08:15.742 - down the hallway, the theme of the decor in the classroom was under the sea. 01:08:15.842 --> 01:08:22.692 - So there were seaweed sort of pasted everywhere and octopi hanging from the ceiling and little starfishes 01:08:22.692 --> 01:08:29.218 - glimmering here and there. It was really impressive, they thought. But what made it truly impressive 01:08:29.218 --> 01:08:35.422 - was that as you walked down the hallway, all of the other classrooms were red and green and had 01:08:35.970 --> 01:08:43.704 - all kinds of seasonal things going on. And I told this to a few people, and I said, isn't that exciting 01:08:43.704 --> 01:08:51.141 - that that can happen, that there are teachers who are doing that? And they said, Jewish people said 01:08:51.141 --> 01:08:58.875 - to me, doesn't that seem kind of wrong? Isn't it wrong not to acknowledge the season at all in any way? 01:08:58.875 --> 01:09:03.486 - And it made me think, and Adam's comment makes me pause also, 01:09:04.322 --> 01:09:11.147 - Is this too much to do about maybe not such a big deal? But I'd love to hear from other people on this 01:09:11.147 --> 01:09:17.840 - question. My foundation was completely based upon hatred of the sea. Right. They were discriminating 01:09:17.840 --> 01:09:24.466 - against me. They're trying to offend me with this ocean paraphernalia. And I'm not terribly hurt by 01:09:24.466 --> 01:09:29.502 - this. What am I going to do? Does anyone else want to share some responses? 01:09:35.650 --> 01:09:43.254 - Tomorrow is the annual Christmas dinner where I work. You pay $8.50 and they hire a caterer and it's 01:09:43.254 --> 01:09:51.083 - a wonderful affair. I personally won't be participating, but not because it's Christmas, mostly because 01:09:51.083 --> 01:09:58.612 - the meal itself is a unique combination of sugar and traife, but I'm not at all offended by that. I 01:09:58.612 --> 01:10:05.086 - work in a building of, there's a couple hundred people that work there, and there are 01:10:05.858 --> 01:10:12.940 - There are no other Jews that work in the building. In fact, at all of Crane, I know of one other now. 01:10:12.940 --> 01:10:20.023 - There were two until Susan moved away. But I don't feel the least bit put upon by that. Now, in part, 01:10:20.023 --> 01:10:27.105 - it's because, as you said, we live in a society in which respect is pretty much the order of the day. 01:10:27.105 --> 01:10:34.049 - If I were forced to work in a smaller cubicle than everybody else or something, that would probably 01:10:34.049 --> 01:10:35.646 - be a different matter. 01:10:36.450 --> 01:10:43.743 - I don't, like Adam, I don't find that to be problematic for me. Now, I understand that for a little 01:10:43.743 --> 01:10:51.400 - kid, that's a different matter. And I'm not sure what to make of that exactly, except to say it's really 01:10:51.400 --> 01:10:58.984 - up to the parents. I'd like to congratulate you for your parenting skills, by the way. You seem to have 01:10:58.984 --> 01:11:03.870 - done a fine job. But I have a thick enough skin, in fact, not only 01:11:04.162 --> 01:11:10.738 - not only does it not offend me, I almost feel kind of special being one of the people who stands out, 01:11:10.738 --> 01:11:17.443 - not like everybody else there that attends this Baptist church or that Presbyterian church, and I don't 01:11:17.443 --> 01:11:23.889 - attend any of that. I think that's a very different situation. And it doesn't make me feel isolated 01:11:23.889 --> 01:11:30.014 - at all. It doesn't bother me. Nor does putting up Christmas decorations or anything like that. 01:11:30.178 --> 01:11:37.690 - I don't like the idea, in fact, of including every holiday in order to be able to include Christmas. 01:11:37.690 --> 01:11:45.203 - That's partly because I don't want Jewish holidays to get scooped up along with Christmas and ruined 01:11:45.203 --> 01:11:52.641 - the way Christmas has been by the commercial interest. But it's also because I don't think that you 01:11:52.641 --> 01:11:58.814 - have to tell the children you can't celebrate Christmas without acknowledging that 01:11:59.170 --> 01:12:05.391 - somebody celebrates Ramadan or Pesach or whatever, Christians have their holidays and they're welcome 01:12:05.391 --> 01:12:11.551 - to celebrate them. And since most of the people around here are Christians, that's going to show up. 01:12:11.551 --> 01:12:17.711 - When high holy days come along, we have to take our kids out of school and get their assignments for 01:12:17.711 --> 01:12:22.590 - the day and so on. And that's a problem and we live with it and they learn that 01:12:22.786 --> 01:12:28.671 - grow up that way and that they're a little different than everybody else. And I don't think that's a 01:12:28.671 --> 01:12:34.789 - problem. As Adam said, that's a life lesson that they need to learn anyway. So I'm going to say go ahead 01:12:34.789 --> 01:12:40.674 - and celebrate Christmas and put up snow bells or whatever in the classroom and maybe even have Santa 01:12:40.674 --> 01:12:44.286 - Claus come visit. And that's OK. It doesn't really bother me. 01:12:46.658 --> 01:12:53.817 - well taken, if we look at it from a cultural perspective, then you can bring in lots of different things 01:12:53.817 --> 01:13:00.703 - to the discussion. And when I was talking about recognizing other religions, when students are asked 01:13:00.703 --> 01:13:07.861 - to be excused as allowed by state attendance laws, then there shouldn't be a criticism attached to that. 01:13:07.861 --> 01:13:14.884 - Why are you getting out of school? Students shouldn't have to defend those family decisions. So again, 01:13:14.884 --> 01:13:15.838 - when I take a 01:13:15.970 --> 01:13:22.383 - a moment to educate and say, this holiday is happening as they do at IU. There's a website at IU that 01:13:22.383 --> 01:13:28.733 - lists all the holidays. What does it mean? How will students be affected by that? Those are the same 01:13:28.733 --> 01:13:35.084 - kinds of teaching things that we do in the schools. This holiday is coming up. Students may be asked 01:13:35.084 --> 01:13:41.371 - to be excused. This is the reason why. And it's not a point of criticism or exclusion. It's a point 01:13:41.371 --> 01:13:44.766 - of family choice and celebration in a particular way. 01:13:47.778 --> 01:13:53.922 - Another comment? I think one of the problems with these kinds of discussions is that so often they're 01:13:53.922 --> 01:14:00.186 - centered around how people feel. You know, the reason why we should have religious pluralism is because 01:14:00.186 --> 01:14:06.391 - some people feel offended if we don't. And I don't think that from the state's point of view that that 01:14:06.391 --> 01:14:12.474 - makes any sense. You know, the state is not in the business of not offending people. The state is in 01:14:12.474 --> 01:14:16.510 - the business of making sure that we have a society that functions. 01:14:17.186 --> 01:14:22.478 - So I think and especially with the anecdotes and things like that, well, I don't feel offended by it 01:14:22.478 --> 01:14:27.770 - so it should be okay or whatever. Some other kids might feel offended by it so we shouldn't do that. 01:14:27.770 --> 01:14:33.062 - From a civil society standpoint, I don't think that's a very valuable or viable argument. I think it 01:14:33.062 --> 01:14:38.720 - has to come down to what are the state's interests? And the state's interest is not to promote one religion 01:14:38.720 --> 01:14:43.960 - over another. So if the reason why somebody wants something to happen is because it's based on some 01:14:43.960 --> 01:14:44.798 - religious text, 01:14:45.474 --> 01:14:51.619 - It's not in the state's interest to support that. If it's based on something having to do that will 01:14:51.619 --> 01:14:58.132 - support the society overall, if it's based on a value that the state can use as a foundation, then that's 01:14:58.132 --> 01:15:04.645 - the reason why we should do it. You know, whether you're in the school or whether you're in the workplace 01:15:04.645 --> 01:15:10.851 - or whatever, that all comes from the state. It all comes from law. You know, employers are not going 01:15:10.851 --> 01:15:12.510 - to start having, you know, 01:15:12.866 --> 01:15:19.847 - you know, diverse events just because they feel like it. It's generally because of cultural trends that 01:15:19.847 --> 01:15:26.828 - have happened, part of which has been the legal side of it. So, I think, I guess bottom line is to just 01:15:26.828 --> 01:15:33.607 - try to clarify in these discussions when you're talking about things that have to do with the state, 01:15:33.607 --> 01:15:40.521 - get away from the personal and the sort of feeling side of it, that part of the discussion is valuable 01:15:40.521 --> 01:15:41.662 - but in terms of, 01:15:41.762 --> 01:15:50.346 - making decisions for the state, I don't see that as a viable argument. Whenever someone says the state, 01:15:50.346 --> 01:15:58.682 - I feel I must comment. It's my profession. I think I agree with you particularly in so far as you're 01:15:58.682 --> 01:16:04.542 - wary of having public discussions or making public policy on the basis 01:16:04.642 --> 01:16:10.323 - basis of sentiments or the articulation of sensitivities or grievances or something along those lines. 01:16:10.323 --> 01:16:16.059 - On the other hand, I don't know what the interests of the state are and it depends in part on what kind 01:16:16.059 --> 01:16:21.630 - of state we're talking about and how we define the state and part of how we define the state depends 01:16:21.630 --> 01:16:27.201 - on how we act to create or to sustain a kind of state. It seems to me a democratic state is based on 01:16:27.201 --> 01:16:30.014 - the idea that there are certain fundamental rights 01:16:30.658 --> 01:16:36.394 - And if we push the question, where do those rights come from, we're going to start talking about how 01:16:36.394 --> 01:16:42.414 - it is that people feel a sense of indignity or indignation, which derives from a sense of being offended. 01:16:42.414 --> 01:16:48.490 - So it seems to me the question of offense should never be the center of discussion. And it's quite boring, 01:16:48.490 --> 01:16:54.169 - you know, for people to just have these rap sessions where they talk about how badly their feelings 01:16:54.169 --> 01:16:55.646 - are heard and couldn't we 01:16:55.810 --> 01:17:02.003 - organize things in a way that no one's feelings will hurt. I completely agree with you, but I also think 01:17:02.003 --> 01:17:08.256 - we need to be clear about what a democratic state is. And a democratic state is a state in which citizens 01:17:08.256 --> 01:17:14.390 - are recognized as having a certain integrity and a certain dignity. And I don't think we can completely 01:17:14.390 --> 01:17:20.466 - separate that from the question of offense, you know. This is sort of in line with what you just said. 01:17:20.466 --> 01:17:23.710 - I just wanted to say we all have a right to speak out. 01:17:24.322 --> 01:17:32.135 - And it is so important if someone makes an offensive remark or gives a faulty comment, it is so important 01:17:32.135 --> 01:17:39.948 - that we call them on it. You can do it politely, but nevertheless, you do not get a fallacious statement. 01:17:39.948 --> 01:17:47.319 - You don't let it go out to other people because it will be believed. So when something is said that 01:17:47.319 --> 01:17:54.174 - you feel is wrong, the time to correct it is then. Now take the person aside later privately 01:17:54.594 --> 01:18:01.941 - You do it as much as you can within the group in which it was stated and you correct them with it and 01:18:01.941 --> 01:18:09.433 - you just try to put things straight. And we're all individuals, we all have a right to say what we want 01:18:09.433 --> 01:18:16.852 - but we should be very considerate of the other person and occasionally we have to set things straight. 01:18:16.852 --> 01:18:21.822 - Ruth and her husband Bob were founding members of Bloomington United 01:18:22.466 --> 01:18:29.700 - I mean, this whole thing is taking place in part because a small number of people, including them, did 01:18:29.700 --> 01:18:37.145 - that with the first pamphlets that led to the formation of this group. I mean, they did that individually 01:18:37.145 --> 01:18:44.450 - but also with other people. Thank you, Ruth. That's why I suggested that his description of evangelical 01:18:44.450 --> 01:18:48.734 - was not entirely accurate, that he needed to sort of, right? 01:18:49.026 --> 01:18:53.932 - You. I was responding to someone else's question, but whatever. Go on. You go on. You're talking. I'm 01:18:53.932 --> 01:18:58.935 - just listening. But I keep feeling like these Bloomington United things, what we preach needs to happen 01:18:58.935 --> 01:19:03.745 - inside the discussions that we're talking about. So you made some comments about evangelical. And I 01:19:03.745 --> 01:19:08.796 - felt myself saying, oh, that's not entirely true. But then I thought I'll let it go. But then I thought, 01:19:08.796 --> 01:19:13.365 - no, I can't let it go. That's OK. Because that's what we're doing here. Don't let anything go. 01:19:13.365 --> 01:19:17.406 - That's OK. But when you look at the tape, you'll see that I said some evangelicals. 01:19:17.506 --> 01:19:25.264 - And so, those kinds of qualifications are the way that I talk. And so, I mean, and I'll stand corrected 01:19:25.264 --> 01:19:32.874 - if I didn't. But if you took offense, I apologize and I'm glad you're calling me on it now. Let's so, 01:19:32.874 --> 01:19:40.483 - I mean, yeah. Yeah, that's okay, obviously. But I want us to be able to dial on here, so. Yeah. Yeah, 01:19:40.483 --> 01:19:46.078 - please. I'm trying to think about how to make this comment without giving, 01:19:46.178 --> 01:19:56.053 - Adam more press. He's gotten so much attention for his comments here, but, uh, this is, uh, uh, 01:19:56.053 --> 01:20:06.340 - for Sarah, I think, um, I've been reflecting tonight on what it was like for me as a member of, uh, 01:20:06.340 --> 01:20:14.878 - as a child in a small lumber town in Southern Oregon that was totally homogeneous. 01:20:15.138 --> 01:20:25.407 - completely unlike any college town. Growing up, learning only about the point of view that reflected 01:20:25.407 --> 01:20:35.879 - that community. And then when I was older, 12 or 13, moving to the San Francisco Bay area and starting 01:20:35.879 --> 01:20:39.742 - to go to school, which saved my soul. 01:20:40.130 --> 01:20:47.838 - because I had to encounter ethnicity. I had to encounter all sorts of diversities. I had to encounter 01:20:47.838 --> 01:20:55.546 - the dirty speech that became free speech movement from Berkeley. I had to encounter the gay movement, 01:20:55.546 --> 01:21:03.557 - the anti-war movement. I had to encounter all sorts of things that I had learned tacitly to be subversive 01:21:03.557 --> 01:21:08.318 - and wrong and different. And while I think it's very important 01:21:09.186 --> 01:21:17.623 - for us to think about the sensibilities of the minority members of our community. I think it's important 01:21:17.623 --> 01:21:25.900 - for the majority members of the community to learn more about the diversity that is our world if we're 01:21:25.900 --> 01:21:33.936 - going to have a pedagogy for democratic citizenship where we can encounter one another robustly, we 01:21:33.936 --> 01:21:37.150 - can be agonistic short of antagonistic, 01:21:37.314 --> 01:21:46.188 - and we can be respectful of one another. And so I guess this statement has kind of a tacit suggestion 01:21:46.188 --> 01:21:54.887 - and question to you about what's at stake for the majority population of your student body to learn 01:21:54.887 --> 01:21:57.758 - about these issues of diversity. 01:22:08.642 --> 01:22:19.220 - As you pointed out, I see it only as an advantage where the majority has that opportunity to share ideas, 01:22:19.220 --> 01:22:29.498 - to talk openly in a safe environment, to see, hear, and appreciate the differences that are around us. 01:22:29.498 --> 01:22:37.182 - As Jeff pointed out, a basis for doing that is the commonality. All students 01:22:37.570 --> 01:22:45.685 - in this building are attending this school for the sole purpose of graduating from high school. That's 01:22:45.685 --> 01:22:53.800 - what's out there. But on that path of reaching graduation, there will be lots of opportunities to gain 01:22:53.800 --> 01:23:01.757 - new knowledge and get new information and share in different experiences that they might not have at 01:23:01.757 --> 01:23:06.878 - some other place. When we look at our student population and the 01:23:07.042 --> 01:23:17.703 - and the activism in our student body. You can't shy away from things. You are involved in some way, 01:23:17.703 --> 01:23:28.471 - one way or another. It's in posters. It's in different meeting announcements. It's providing lots of 01:23:28.471 --> 01:23:34.974 - opportunities to observe initially, probably, and hopefully, 01:23:35.138 --> 01:23:43.191 - participate in some way but I only see that as an advantage with the student population and with the 01:23:43.191 --> 01:23:51.164 - teaching staff who is supportive of those kind of conversations. We make mistakes. We, all of us do 01:23:51.164 --> 01:24:00.094 - and there have been times that we've had to step back and rethink an event or something that may have happened. 01:24:00.226 --> 01:24:07.481 - But I think it's very important, as you pointed out, when we see something that's not right, we take 01:24:07.481 --> 01:24:14.735 - the time to educate and make sure it doesn't happen again. And we use those opportunities to discuss 01:24:14.735 --> 01:24:21.918 - issues. But again, it's a growing opportunity for everybody in that school. I think we'll have just 01:24:21.918 --> 01:24:25.438 - one more comment and then our time is almost up. 01:24:27.074 --> 01:24:35.248 - My name is CJ Hawking. I'm a part of Bloomington United and felt compelled to follow on the gentleman's 01:24:35.248 --> 01:24:43.422 - comment. I moved here almost four years ago to the date in the opposite direction you did. I moved from 01:24:43.422 --> 01:24:51.282 - Chicago to what I came to learn as being the Bible Belt. And I didn't know that. I didn't know that 01:24:51.282 --> 01:24:55.998 - Bloomington was a part of the Bible Belt, but indeed it is. 01:24:56.450 --> 01:25:06.834 - I'm also a United Methodist pastor. And coming out of a context where it's very eclectic in Chicago, 01:25:06.834 --> 01:25:17.115 - it's been very shocking to me to see ornaments being made in the schools, to see Secret Santas, and 01:25:17.115 --> 01:25:24.414 - to hear about a choir, a public school choir singing Christmas carols. 01:25:24.738 --> 01:25:35.573 - boggles my mind. And because we are an educated, somewhat sophisticated community with the influence 01:25:35.573 --> 01:25:46.515 - of the university, I wonder if Bloomington cannot elevate not only the discussion but the practice to 01:25:46.515 --> 01:25:48.446 - be much more true 01:25:48.738 --> 01:25:57.135 - to what a public school is designed to be and it's not designed to be a church or a synagogue or any 01:25:57.135 --> 01:26:05.533 - of those things. My daughter is five years old and she's in a private kindergarten right now and I'm 01:26:05.533 --> 01:26:13.182 - just bracing myself for when she hits first grade and is inundated with Christian arrogance 01:26:13.730 --> 01:26:24.564 - and dominance because that's not at all how we intend to raise her. So it's very difficult for me to 01:26:24.564 --> 01:26:35.292 - come into this environment even though my faith dominates and to somehow feel comfortable in what I 01:26:35.292 --> 01:26:41.406 - perceive to be a very closed, exclusive, almost hostile, 01:26:41.762 --> 01:26:50.733 - environment to anyone who doesn't fall in this 96% majority range. I have three children in public school 01:26:50.733 --> 01:26:59.281 - in Monroe County and so cumulatively we're in our tenth year, you know we're in our tenth classroom. 01:26:59.281 --> 01:27:08.252 - I have a sixth grader, a second grader, and a kindergartner and in the same school I find this experience 01:27:08.252 --> 01:27:10.622 - is brand new the next year. 01:27:11.106 --> 01:27:16.490 - It has everything to do with what teacher is in that classroom. We will have one child in one classroom 01:27:16.490 --> 01:27:21.874 - where there is nothing, you know, nothing. It is not present, and then we'll have another child in that 01:27:21.874 --> 01:27:27.103 - same year in that same school in a classroom where, you know, the Santa Claus display, you know, the 01:27:27.103 --> 01:27:32.332 - Santa Claus collection is there. And we, the very first question that was asked is what can we do as 01:27:32.332 --> 01:27:38.078 - parents, and I don't know that we ever answered that, but I think what you do is go to the teacher and explain 01:27:38.274 --> 01:27:44.696 - and express your concerns. Now, as a Baptist pastor, I go and express these concerns, and they just 01:27:44.696 --> 01:27:51.374 - stare at me with their mouth open like, what are you talking about? We were going to have you come sing 01:27:51.374 --> 01:27:57.795 - or something. So it just depends on that. But it's very interesting because our school is populated 01:27:57.795 --> 01:28:04.667 - by the families of IU professors, which would have made me think we would be the school to sort of elevate 01:28:04.667 --> 01:28:05.694 - the discussion. 01:28:06.338 --> 01:28:12.138 - And then I have two teachers in my church who are the music teachers in Greene County School System. 01:28:12.138 --> 01:28:17.938 - And there, if they don't do Christian music, they hear about it from their parents. So it's, I mean, 01:28:17.938 --> 01:28:23.854 - it all depends on what school, what classroom you're at, I think. And I'm sympathetic to a principal's 01:28:23.854 --> 01:28:29.596 - predicament because she's got parents coming in saying, why is the Santa Claus display up? And then 01:28:29.596 --> 01:28:35.454 - the teacher is the next one in saying, why can't I have my Santa Claus display up? It's my classroom. 01:28:36.418 --> 01:28:43.100 - So it's a predicament. It seems to me, though, that the issue really isn't the managerial question of 01:28:43.100 --> 01:28:49.912 - how to deal with those delicate situations, but really the question of what is the function of a public 01:28:49.912 --> 01:28:56.528 - school. And, you know, I think you articulated a very powerful understanding of that. It's not clear 01:28:56.528 --> 01:29:01.310 - to me that that is the Monroe County School Corporation's understanding. 01:29:01.442 --> 01:29:07.793 - It may be its understanding at the level of some mission statement somewhere in someone's drawer or 01:29:07.793 --> 01:29:14.271 - something, but it's not clear that that's the understanding in terms of public policy. How the school 01:29:14.271 --> 01:29:20.685 - corporation is run, you know, how every school principal understands his or her mission or vocation, 01:29:20.685 --> 01:29:27.290 - you know, and it seems to me that there we need to work much harder to deal with the school corporation 01:29:27.290 --> 01:29:30.846 - and to continually raise these issues, you know, and I, 01:29:30.978 --> 01:29:36.298 - If anyone has ideas about this, by the way, you know, people in Bloomington United have talked about 01:29:36.298 --> 01:29:41.723 - this for a couple of years and we used to have a subcommittee trying to work on this and in some small 01:29:41.723 --> 01:29:47.412 - way this event is the outcome both of that process and the failing of that process to come up with anything 01:29:47.412 --> 01:29:52.837 - more substantial beyond a conversation like this, which is a wonderful conversation. If people do have 01:29:52.837 --> 01:29:58.526 - ideas or desires to become involved in this, I think this is a really, really important question, you know. 01:29:58.658 --> 01:30:04.122 - how do our schools understand their civic mission? And I'm going to be really quick because we're probably 01:30:04.122 --> 01:30:09.535 - running out of time, but it seems to me this is partly a question of diversity issues, but it goes beyond 01:30:09.535 --> 01:30:14.744 - that. You know, I just want to say, you know, my friend Bob Ivy, who asked the question before, spoke 01:30:14.744 --> 01:30:20.055 - on the courthouse today, on the courthouse lawn at a small demonstration about a potential war in Iraq. 01:30:20.055 --> 01:30:24.702 - And, you know, it was a decent-sized crowd. I'm sure you'll see a paper about this on the, 01:30:24.930 --> 01:30:29.650 - cover the H.T. tomorrow and there was some media there. There weren't that many people there. We could 01:30:29.650 --> 01:30:34.324 - have an interesting conversation about why there weren't more people there. Obviously a lot of people 01:30:34.324 --> 01:30:39.228 - don't share that point of view, but there was an effort to participate in a public discourse about whether 01:30:39.228 --> 01:30:44.039 - our country is going to go to war. This is a really important thing. Today is International Human Rights 01:30:44.039 --> 01:30:48.851 - Day in December. It doesn't have to do with Christmas, but arguably it's something of some significance. 01:30:48.851 --> 01:30:49.630 - How many classes 01:30:49.826 --> 01:30:55.452 - In this entire school corporation, do you think had a discussion about International Human Rights Day 01:30:55.452 --> 01:31:00.967 - or should we go to war in Iraq or if there's a demonstration on the square, what do you think about 01:31:00.967 --> 01:31:06.483 - it? How many schools are going to talk about this? How many classroom tomorrow? I'll bet like none, 01:31:06.483 --> 01:31:11.998 - you know. There's too many other important things to talk about. There's something wrong with this. 01:31:14.242 --> 01:31:22.057 - everybody for participating tonight and I see someone who might want to say a quick word standing up 01:31:22.057 --> 01:31:30.026 - is that right John? A quick quick word. First of all I'm John Malloy I'm superintendent of schools for 01:31:30.026 --> 01:31:37.918 - MCCSC and I appreciate the dialogue this evening especially when public schools are always the topic. 01:31:38.882 --> 01:31:45.636 - One thing in coming to Bloomington that somewhat disappointed me is the diversity of the community. 01:31:45.636 --> 01:31:52.457 - I really thought with the university that the schools would be more representative of the community. 01:31:52.457 --> 01:31:59.413 - And quite frankly, we're only about 17% when we talk about diversity. And so in some ways, our schools 01:31:59.413 --> 01:32:03.870 - are reflective of the community and the culture in which we live. 01:32:04.674 --> 01:32:11.898 - And unfortunately in this community because many individuals were born and raised here and many of our 01:32:11.898 --> 01:32:19.122 - teachers are in our schools teaching from the standpoint of their experiences. And many schools around 01:32:19.122 --> 01:32:26.697 - the country not just in Bloomington are extremely reflective of the teachers in those schools and generally 01:32:26.697 --> 01:32:31.326 - those teachers come from a close community if not that community. 01:32:31.522 --> 01:32:39.194 - I can say that the communities where I have worked have been very diverse, much more so than Bloomington. 01:32:39.194 --> 01:32:46.432 - I've been in Pike Township in Indianapolis. We were roughly 45% minority. Michigan City was roughly 01:32:46.432 --> 01:32:54.032 - 30%. And one thing that was very important in the schools where I operated is to have not just tolerance 01:32:54.032 --> 01:33:01.342 - but teaching acceptance. One of the things that we've done as of November 21st is we have kicked off 01:33:01.570 --> 01:33:08.569 - what I call Human Understanding and Diversity Advisory Committee. It's made up of approximately 01:33:08.569 --> 01:33:16.006 - 30 individuals, half of which from the MCCSC, who will be responsible for implementing curriculum and 01:33:16.006 --> 01:33:23.443 - directing any kind of recommendations coming from the advisory committee. And the other half are from 01:33:23.443 --> 01:33:31.390 - a broad base group in the community of which the Bloomington United is represented. Also, Rabbi Wasserman is 01:33:31.842 --> 01:33:39.172 - member of that committee. And the idea is at least to give a charge to that committee to focus in four 01:33:39.172 --> 01:33:46.787 - particular areas and certainly they have the flexibility to go into other areas as well. But very quickly, 01:33:46.787 --> 01:33:54.331 - looking at the professional development for administrators and teachers. Secondly, to look at integrating 01:33:54.331 --> 01:33:57.534 - multicultural education into our curriculum. 01:33:57.634 --> 01:34:04.637 - K-12. Looking at the issue of attracting, hiring and retaining people of color, we only have about 3 01:34:04.637 --> 01:34:11.987 - percent of our adults that represent people of color. The state average is 6 percent and certainly that's 01:34:11.987 --> 01:34:15.038 - a whole other topic talking about trying to 01:34:15.138 --> 01:34:22.496 - to attract people of color into the field of education when we know that many of them see the pay as 01:34:22.496 --> 01:34:29.781 - being very low and not competitive with other areas. And the fourth, probably the most important of 01:34:29.781 --> 01:34:37.140 - all, is sensitivity training to the adults and students of our community. So I can tell you that the 01:34:37.140 --> 01:34:44.862 - school system as well over the next few years during my tenure will take this issue very, very seriously. 01:34:44.994 --> 01:34:52.206 - And hopefully over the course of time, we can move to an awareness with our faculty, not in the area 01:34:52.206 --> 01:34:59.632 - of trying to push acceptance of religion, but an awareness. We can certainly focus on study of religion 01:34:59.632 --> 01:35:03.774 - and not the practice, and certainly the academics and not 01:35:03.874 --> 01:35:10.406 - a devotion and so I think it's a very important piece that at least the schools begin to address and 01:35:10.406 --> 01:35:16.939 - I think over the course of time if we were to reconvene this particular August group that maybe when 01:35:16.939 --> 01:35:23.730 - we talk about public schools, especially here in Monroe County, we'll have an entirely different picture 01:35:23.730 --> 01:35:24.894 - than we do today. 01:35:28.162 --> 01:35:34.543 - for a great dialogue. Thank you. Don't leave without a cookie. Also, there are some materials on the 01:35:34.543 --> 01:35:41.429 - table there that I'll invite you to look at and even to take. They're from a website called freedomforum.org 01:35:41.429 --> 01:35:47.937 - and it has some wonderful materials from the First Amendment Center on public schools and the teaching 01:35:47.937 --> 01:35:50.590 - of religion. So thank you and good night.