REPOST:
In April 2005, Frances Davis (Chief Human Resources Officer) requested a check for $1,000 payable to Hopewell Baptist Church, with no reason or documentation given. Upon further investigation, this payment was a donation or honorarium for a celebration honoring the church’s pastor.
On April 25, 2005, Ms. Davis completed and signed a Check Request Form for payment of this honorarium from a school district account. We have knowledge of, but no evidence in-hand, of other payments made to this church.The fax below shows CFO Jeff Weiler questioning Davis about this check and her response, telling Weiler not to worry about it because Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks had already given the "ok for payment."
Weiler chose to further pursue this matter due to the obvious legal ramifications for the school district. Davis responded by leaving a voicemail that again tried to downplays the situation as no big deal and questioning his authority to investigate the issue. Weiler. in turn, sent a memo on May 12 (at bottom of entry). The memo included this excerpt from Article I, Section II, Paragraph VII of the Georgia Constitution.
Paragraph VII. Separation of church and state. No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution.
When Weiler took the information to Wilbanks, he responded by saying that “this should have never come to you like this” and proceeded to right a personal check for the full amount of $1,000.
Of course, there is no doubt in our minds that Wilbanks and Davis chose to try and sneak this payment out of GCPS (and taxpayer) funds, only to change when caught in the act. We are confident that further research into GCPS accounts would provide proof of similar payments that were made and not caught by employee audits.
According to Laura Diamond's article in the AJC, Gwinnett School Board Chairman Robert McClure reviewed these allegations with Wilbanks. He told the paper that the money was paid to Hopewell Baptist to recruit prospective employees. However, no documentation of these recruitment ads has been provided. No answers have been provided as to why Wilbanks chose to write a personal check for this payment either.
To further cloud matters, one former GCPS employee has stated that he was instructed to provide on-site technical support for the church after hours. Questions have also been raised about the church donating computers to the church as well.
According to McClure, "this is all a bunch of nonsense." It appears many citizens in Gwinnett County seem to disagree.
posted by The Truth Will Set You Free @ 12/04/2006 08:31:00 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
It should also be noted that school board member Mary Kay Murphy is connected to the Hopewell Baptist church. On her re-election website, http://www.marykaymurphy.org/background.html, she states clearly that she is a teacher in the Hopewell Baptist Church Gateway Sunday School class. Thus the question, why would the school board question a payment to a program one of its members contributes too?
Read the ADL Posts on Religion in Public Schools included recently on the blog?
The DA needs to prosecute The School Board Members and Mr. Wilbanks and Dr. Francis Davis for violating THE US Constitution, America's most basic set of laws on promoting policies which violate the separation of Church and State and then trying to cover-up the acts. This also violates Georgia's Constitution!
The $1,000 is either a honorarium for the Pastor paid by Mr. Wilbanks personal check after he was questioned about it? Or it is a fee for a employee recruiting ad to Hopewell Baptist Church. It cannot be both. In either case it vilolates the US and Georgia's Constitutions on separation of church and state and is wrong. (Read the ADL information posted on issues like this).
The Jose Perez Consulting Contract is also very suspicious? Giving a lucrative contract to a firm owned by a State Board of Education Member after he is appointed by the Governor just does not seem right... Not only should Gwinnetts DA look into this but so should The Georgia State Ethics Commission? Has anyone shared this information with The State Agency that regulates State Officials Ethics?
The Contract to Target Market Trends owned by State Board of Education member Jose Perez after he was appointed by The Governor seems questionable and very unethical? The DA needs to investigate this relationship, also someone needs to notify the State Agency that regulates Ethics for Elected and Appointed State Officials of this right away!
Religion in the Public Schools
Background: Religious Liberty in America
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
-- The First Amendment
"Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, ' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
-- Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802.
A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.
-- Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black,
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 431 (1962).
Why Care?
Since its founding in 1913, the Anti-Defamation League has been guided by its mandate of combating bigotry, bias and discrimination, and securing the rights and liberties of all citizens of the United States. ADL believes deeply and profoundly in the importance of preserving and safeguarding freedom of religion in our increasingly pluralistic nation. Consequently, we believe that government should neither promote nor be hostile to religion. This belief has engendered what for many is a distasteful result: organized religious activity must be kept out of the public schools. This position is not one of hostility towards religion; rather, it reflects a profound respect for religious freedom and a recognition of the extraordinary diversity of religions represented by the students in our public schools.
Our nation's founders recognized the importance of keeping religion and the government separate. They did so out of respect for both religion and government, knowing that the combination of the two helped neither and often hurt both. To do this, they wrote three clauses in the United States Constitution to ensure that religion and government did not mix.
1. Religious Test Clause: "[N] o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 3.
2. Establishment Clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . . ." U.S. Constitution, Amendment I.
3. Free Exercise Clause: "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise thereof." U.S. Constitution, Amendment I.
Together these three clauses embody and ensure what Jefferson called the "separation of church and state." (For those dealing with the public schools, only the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause are of immediate concern.)
Not merely burdensome legal technicalities, these two clauses enshrine the belief that all Americans should be free to practice their religion without state interference.
Compliance with the separation of church and state must be vigorously enforced in the nation's public schools.
Not endorsing or appearing to endorse religion is especially important in the public school setting due to a number of considerations unique to the public schools: the specific sensitivities of school-age children, the fact that public schools are public institutions, and the profound influence of school officials and teachers over students. This last point bears special examination. Most children view their teachers and other school officials as important authority figures. Moreover, children are highly susceptible to coercion, pressure to conform both from adults and from their peers. These factors create a significant danger when religion is introduced into the public schools in circumstances evincing the apparent endorsement of teachers.
Moreover, the student body in America's public schools is growing increasingly diverse. Schools must give special consideration to the fact that many school children belong to minority religions or are raised in non-religious environments. The nation's public schools must be hospitable to students from a variety of backgrounds -- students of all faiths or no faith. Public schools should inculcate students with understanding and respect for diversity, as well as a spirit of tolerance, acceptance and inclusion.
In Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, the Supreme Court nicely summed up the difficulty with school sponsored religion:
School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. 2
Some have said that this viewpoint "bristles with hostility to religion." 3 ADL does not agree. To the contrary, this statement brilliantly expresses the difficulties that arise when government makes religion its aim.
The Law
A. The Establishment Clause
As a legal matter, any school practice or policy must not violate the Establishment Clause. For more than three decades, compliance with the Establishment Clause has been examined under the test the U. S. Supreme Court enunciated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971). When a court looks at whether a program involving religion is permissible, it first asks: does it meet the criteria set forth in Lemon? Indeed, the "Lemon test" has proven largely successful in protecting the religious rights and liberties of all Americans, including religious minorities.
Thus, in order for a state practice or policy, including a public school practice or policy, to pass constitutional muster under the Lemon test, a school official must answer "yes" to the following three questions:
Does the policy in question have a secular purpose?
Will the policy in question have a primary effect which neither advances nor inhibits religion?
Does the policy in question avoid entangling government and religion?
Dr.McClure:
"Paying for Employment Ads in Church Newsletter. No...
Supporting Churches with Computer Support? No.
Making Contributions to Churches? No.
Hiring Employees out of Churches? No Again!
If a school official cannot answer an unequivocal yes to all three of these questions, then the policy must be abandoned!!!
This is necessary as a matter of constitutional law and is good policy.
It respects the rights and sensitivities of all students, some of whom may have religious practices that differ from the one being advanced by the policy in question.
In practice, this means that the public schools must never endorse -- or appear to endorse -- any religion or religious practice. Indeed, not only may they not appear to endorse religion, but they may never appear to disapprove of religion either. Moreover, schools may not give the impression that they endorse religious belief over non-belief or any particular belief over others.
The principle that public schools must never endorse or disapprove of religion has been established in a long line of U. S. Supreme Court decisions. Students must never be given the impression that their school officially prefers or sanctions a particular religion or religion generally. Further, students must never feel coerced by pressure from their peers or from the public to adhere to any religion.
The U. S. Supreme Court reemphasized the importance of church-state separation in the public schools in Lee v. Weisman, 112 S. Ct. 2649 (1992) and more recently in Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U. S. 290 (2000). In both cases, the Court was particularly concerned with the danger of student coercion in public schools resulting from peer and public pressure. The decisions are a ringing reaffirmation of the importance of government not endorsing one religion over another or religion over non-religion, particularly when public schools are involved. Notably, the Supreme Court has held that the state (school) is constitutionally obligated to see that state-supported activity is not used for religious indoctrination. 4
B. The Free Exercise Clause
The second question a school must ask about a proposed policy or practice is whether it violates the "free exercise clause" of the First Amendment. "The free exercise of religion means, first and foremost, the right to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine one desires. Thus, the First Amendment obviously excludes all governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such. The government may not compel affirmation of religious belief, punish the expression of religious doctrines it believes to be false, impose special disabilities on the basis of religious views or religious status, or lend its power to one or the other side in controversies over religious authority or dogma." 5
While this protection seems very broad, the Court has held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes)." 6 That is, if a law or policy is passed that applies to everyone but hap-pens to impinge on your ability to practice your religion, you may not be able to challenge the law or policy on free exercise grounds. These challenges are difficult because the government must only show a minimal justification for such laws. So, for example, criminal drug laws preventing the use of peyote are applicable even to those whose worship requires the use of peyote because the laws were not passed with religion in mind and are applicable to everyone. 7
The relationship between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause can be a bit hard to tease out. At the end of the day, however, so long as the school district is neither endorsing nor disapproving of religion, it should not run afoul of the Constitution.
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. . . so long as the school district is neither endorsing nor disapproving of religion, it should not run afoul of the Constitution.
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Separate church and state???I was told personally by Robert Crowson that the reason daily prayer was allowable in the parent center at our school and that it didn't violate anything was because if these particular students were prohibited from praying daily it would put them outside the tenets of their religion, whereas other religions have no such mandate.
Whew....!! Glad we got that straight....some have to pray and some have to pay.....makes sense to me.
Note the Comments that the Praying must be an individual student activity and not a group activity in order to be constitutional!!!
Separate church and state???I was told personally by Robert Crowson that the reason daily prayer was allowable in the parent center at our school and that it didn't violate anything was because if these particular students were prohibited from praying daily it would put them outside the tenets of their religion, whereas other religions have no such mandate.
Whew....!! Glad we got that straight....some have to pray and some have to pay.....makes sense to me.
Please read the following:
Does the prayer that you are witnessing conform to the below standards?
If it doesn't please notify the ADL,
Anti- Deflamation league at the following address and give them details please!
Southeast (Atlanta)
Serving: Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee
Contact Information:
E-Mail: atlanta@adl.org
Phone: (404) 262-3470
Fax: (404) 262-3548
General Rule: Organized prayer in the public school setting, whether in the classroom or at a school-sponsored event, is unconstitutional.
The only type of prayer that is constitutionally permissible is private, voluntary student prayer that does not interfere with the school's educational mission.
May students pray? Students have the right to engage in voluntary individual prayer
that is not coercive and does not substantially disrupt the school's educational mission and activities. For example, all students have the right to say a blessing before eating a meal.
However, school officials must not promote or encourage a student's personal prayer.
Students may engage with other students in religious activity during non-curricular periods
as long as the activity is not coercive or disruptive. In addition, while students may speak about religious topics with their peers, school officials should intercede if such discussions become religious harassment. It is essential that private religious activity not materially disrupt the school's educational mission and activities. Personal religious activity may not interfere with the rights or well-being of other students, and the threat of student harassment and pressure must be carefully monitored.
It is also critical to ensure that the religious activity is actually student-initiated,
and that no school employee supervises or participates in the activity.
Any school promotion or endorsement of a student's private religious activity is unconstitutional.
Has anyone put in a Phone call to the Anti-Deflamation League, The NAACP,ACLU, The Push Coalition or Atlanta Pride's office in Atlanta. If you know of religious or racial discrimination at GCPS please contact these organizations. Also contact The US Department of Education Office on Civil Rights enforcement?
Discrimination that exists at GCPS cannot be tolerated and must be stopped now!
So what did Gwinnett County's Attorney General say about this? He refused to view this blog and told us the only way Gwinnett County would investigate is if we filed a police report. This does not seem like the due diligence that I would expect from public official.
FYI not only did GCPS give money to the church, they for a number of years supplied them with a computer and onsite technical support.
I was personally ask (by my supervisor) to go to the church after business hours and help them sort computers so that the church could get rid of some of the obsolete items.
Ernie Smith,
Former GCPS Coordinator of Technical Support Services"
So much for not using public money to support religious institutions?
The Central Office is definitely Anti-Jewish and Anti-People of Color. Yes, Miss Davis has hired a few, but they are her close friends. The district is also anti-gay. There are only 15% or less minorities in the Central Office and schools, even though the student population is approximately 60% minority. They do not reflect in any way shape or form the population they are serving. A large percentage of minorities apply, but they do not hire them.
I was in a Prominent Gwinnett County High School. All that was on display in The Administrative Office was a Christmas Tree surrounded with extensive decorations...
Jewish, Muslim and Hindu Students, etc. must feel terrible, as well as inferior....
Read what the ADL has to say about Holiday Displays in Public Schools.
This again unfortunately reveals Gwinnett Principals and Administrators lack of sophistication and sensitivity on these issues and others!
"What about symbols that have become secular? The Supreme Court has held that a Christmas tree has become such a secular symbol of the winter holiday season that its display by a public entity does not violate the Establishment Clause. 40 The Supreme Court has also found that a Hanukkah menorah is a symbol with both secular and religious meanings, and its display by a public entity other than a school within a predominantly secular holiday display does not offend the Establishment Clause. 41 The Supreme Court has not addressed whether such a display is permissible in the public school context, but it has noted that a school's display of a Christmas tree and menorah could raise additional constitutional concerns. 42 However, lower courts have not invalidated such displays and it is likely that they are permissible.
Even setting aside the legal questions for a moment, teachers and school administrators should be extremely cautious in using these symbols as decorations. The classroom and school premises are the place where children spend the majority of their day. It is important that all students feel comfortable and accepted in their school. Symbols of religious holidays may make some students uncomfortable and unwelcome because their holidays and traditions are not represented or because they do not celebrate religious holidays at all."
Pay particular attention to the last paragraph of the analysis!
Another blatant example of how Gwinnett County Public Schools Management and Central Office Personnel are Anti-Semetic!!!
The perfect hires - Resume for GCPS:
White male over 40, no college degree. A member of Hopewell Baptist Church.
Long time friend of Dr. Francis Davis.
A resident of Fulton County.
Disabled because of impaired eye sight and dyslexia not to mention suffers from alcholism.
Salary Requirement $65,000 per year.
Work sought a Management position in Human Resources or Finance.
Previous Position former Dekalb County Police Officer receiving Pension Benefits.
STOP THE RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION IN GCPS !!!
Remove the School Board and Mr. Wilbanks from their positions now...
Protest against their Actions !
Please attend the School Board Meeting this coming Thursday 12/14 at GCPS Headquarters in Suwanee at 6:30. It is crucial that we have a good size crowd at the Meeting!!!
Ask Questions of the Board during the public comment portion of the meeting on Thursday 12/14...
Make signs to display to the TV cameras filming the meeting !
It is also the last meeting of 2006...
The Media will be covering this Meeting !!!!
We need to ask Dr.McClure about the whole Hopewell Baptist matter at the School Board meeting this Thursday night !
It makes no sense that our educators make less than a transportation supervisor.
I think thjat sense it is so important we teach our children, it is only fair the school system supplies cars for our teachers like the transportation department does for high school, GED educated employees.
Several of us, Black Teachers have discussed amongst ourselves forming a new group "GCPS Black Employees Alliance." To fight the mistreatment of minority education personnel by management in GCPS that is currently occurring in both the central office and schools. Is there any broad interest in creating such an association to protect our peers from Managements abuses? If there is please respond to this post.
Thank you,
Black Educators of Gwinnett County
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