Newsgroups: alt.atheism
From: shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit)
Subject: "If You Don't Fight Back, It's Wrong" by Daniel Weisman
Message-ID: <C0wnDJ.Fvs@math.uwaterloo.ca>
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1993 17:03:17 GMT
Lines: 312

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This article is reprinted (with permission) from Freethought
Today, bulletin of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

For more information, write 

Freedom From Religion Foundation
P. O. Box 750
Madison, WI  53701
USA
(608) 256-8900

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"If You Don't Fight Back, It's Wrong"

In June, 1992, the United States Supreme Court declared prayers at
public high-school graduations to be unconstitutional, in the Lee v.
Weisman decision. This article is excerpted from Professor Weisman's
acceptance speech at the 15th annual Freedom From Religion Foundation
convention in San Antonio, December 5, 1992, when he and his family
were awarded the Foundation's 1992 "Freethinkers of the Year." His talk
was punctuated with applause and laughter.


By Prof. Daniel Weisman

Let me share an impression of my day here. We were approached and got
to talk to a lot of you. Even the false modesty we build up in academia
was inadequate to the kind of expressions people shared with us. A
number of people came up to us and expressed with deep sincerity their
appreciation for what we did. I can tell you as some of you shared your
stories about what you've done, I felt like organizing a "Heroes
Anonymous" group here!

We simply got very angry at what was an extremely inappropriate action
by a local school board in response to a question we raised.

In 1986 Merith graduated from our neighborhood public middle school. At
the graduation a Baptist minister had us stand, bow our heads and pray
as a group to Jesus Christ: "We all thank Jesus Christ. He made these
kids what they are today."

I had lots of reactions. Most of those have been well-reported in the
media.  Mostly those reactions had to do with my identity as a Jew, but
also as a social worker where there is a commitment in my profession to
respond to challenges of vulnerable people, who always tend to be in
the minority, whether it is race or religion. I reacted on both levels,
and just raised some questions with my local school district. I sent a
note to the principal, who wasn't actually at that graduation because
of a family problem: "You missed something ... We hope you share our
reaction." We never heard from anybody. It's very unusual not to get an
answer.

Three years passed. Deborah came up to graduate that year in 1989 and
we reminded the local school that we had been upset in the past. They
didn't answer us in February, in March, in April. We knew there was a
problem. Eventually we were able to get a meeting with the principal,
after a school teacher told us they had received our complaint and
recognized how uncomfortable we were, and therefore they had arranged
to get a rabbi to give the message at the graduation!  (This is
absolutely true!) We had a meeting with the principal and he basically
said, "So sue me." Well, we did! [lots of clapping]

The point I'm trying to make is: I appreciate being appreciated. We all
do. But when you're in this position you get pushed. And you have a
choice.  Either take it, or if it's important enough and it's a
reasonable thing to fight about, fight it. If you don't fight back,
it's wrong. You don't feel so much a hero as, "What else am I supposed
to do?" [clapping]

You do take abuse. You do get negative attention. But you have to live
with yourself. Part of the problem we face in having to fight these
battles over and over is that people who do believe the way we all do
on church and state take it. Some of them take it because they don't
have tenure and they don't have options. But you can also join with
other people and devise strategies not to take it.

My two biggest disappointments in having taken the case were the lack
of support from the organized Jewish community in Rhode Island, and
from my own field, social work. The organized Jewish community was
embarrassed. Individuals, lots of individuals expressed support, people
we don't know, people we do know. In fact, on the flip side, one of the
harassing calls we got at eleven o'clock at night was from the
principal of the Jewish day school saying, "You don't like public
schools? Send your kid here. We'll give you a scholarship." It came
from everywhere: the lack of support from the organized Jewish
community--who know they knew better; the lack of organized support
from my social work profession, where there was no risk to express
support. They just couldn't make the connection that I felt was vital
for what our profession is about.

I think you know the rest about the case. It shouldn't have gone past
the meeting with the principal. It did. It shouldn't have gone past
district court. It did. So on and so forth. With the Supreme Court I
just got the winning ticket. The Supreme Court, very surprisingly for
us, ruled in our favor.

I can tell you during that last spring, we spent a number of ACLU
meetings practicing concession speeches. We actually had written
concession speeches, and when somebody in the group asked, "What are
you going to say if you win?" we all looked at that person and said:
"Get a life!"

We did not have anything ready when we won. It was incredibly
exciting.  Language doesn't capture the feelings I had. When the phone
rang I was actually on the same block as the Pawtucket creche, in the
same complex, at a meeting there. I got the phone call there and I
said, "Two losses on the same block!" But fortunately that didn't
happen.

The feeling that you didn't lose an important case is incredible. The
second thought: not only didn't we lose, but we actually won! There's
no match for such feelings, among the experiences I've had in life.

Let me just share a couple of other thoughts. When Anne called us
several months ago to describe what she wanted to do for us, she was
very good and asked us to whom the plaque should be made out. In our
discussions about it we decided this is the year of family values! This
was a family project. [clapping]

This morning both speakers in the morning session, Allen Berger and
Craig Phelon, made tremendously complimentary statements about us and I
can just mirror them back on both of them, they're both courageous
people. Allen describes himself as a "nonbelieving Jew at a Catholic
college." That was kind of amusing. And I thought, Hey, I'm a
nonbelieving Jew in a public college--in a Catholic state! A
distinction without a difference as far as most Rhode Islanders are
concerned. That's part of the problem.



*     *     *

The current agenda as far as I can ascertain of the religious right is
to redevelop this country as a Christian nation. It's in their language
and it's in the post-case discussion: "This is a Christian nation." The
distinction between the majority and a body of law that separates a
majority from public policy is lost in their rhetoric. That's the First
Amendment, which is critically important and protects us from the
abuses that the majority will perpetrate on us.

Remember the Supreme Court decision only pertained to public schools
through twelfth grade and deliberately excluded colleges on the
assessment that by that age you can't be coerced anymore. And so the
separation of church and state is not the issue; coercion is, even
though they specifically rejected the coercion test.

I want to show you something. This campus mail came to my office the
day before yesterday: "Celebrating the birth of Christ--program
sponsored by the chaplain's office" of our public college. Here's what
they're doing this month. "Preparing our hearts for Christmas. Roman
Catholic Mass, Advent Prayer Hour for Roman Catholics." When I raised
this issue among my colleagues, the answer I get is, "The Supreme Court
says you can do this, so what's your problem?" People of good will and
people who know better are inclined not to fight back. The other
argument I get is, "She's not an employee of the college. What's the
big deal?" She isn't--she's paid for by the church but she has the
imprimatur of the college. It's the same fight.


Craig Phelon said that journalism loses its professionalism when it
comes to religion. That may be. In my experience of over three years
with the media, I couldn't find that professionalism.

A quick story.  NBC came to our house. They called the day before:
"We're coming." They showed up with the film crew. They set up at the
house, the lights, the whole thing. The woman who was not one of their
luminaries, someone I had never seen before, said off-camera, "They
just assigned me this case. I don't know what it's about. Tell me what
to ask you." Then they turn the lights on.

We were on "Good Morning, America" the day before the case came down. I
almost missed my flight, and, by the way I specifically asked not to
fly Continental because it's a scab airline, and that's what they put
me on. The producer had me on the phone for too long, specifically
reviewing what we were going to talk about in our 40-second bite. I
gave him a lot of things to talk about. I said there are really two
things not to ask, because they're dead-end questions. One is: don't
ask me why we sued a rabbi. It was a circumstantial thing and really
unrelated to the First Amendment issues of the case, it's just a
happenstance, but it will kill the time, actually the five minute piece
they had, and you won't get a chance to probe. The second thing is
don't ask Deborah what her friends thought, because everybody's asked
that, and it's a fairly simple answer. At first, her friends didn't
understand it. If they talked about, they came to understand.

We get to "Good Morning, America," the Green Room, the powder room, we
meet with the people who think they're very important, we should know
who they are. I'd never heard of Joan Lunden 'til I'm sitting beside
her. I didn't know who she was! (She didn't like that!) She says to me,
"So why a rabbi?" I answered it. She goes to Deborah: "What do your
friends think?"

When cert. was granted (when the Supreme Court said they would take
this case) it was March of 1991.  I was on sabbatical in Seattle. I
came home for Passover. We were having our version of a Passover Seder
at the house, which might appear very similar to the [nonprayer]
breakfast we had this morning. Here's our Passover tradition: Pass the
food. So CNN calls the night before.  "You are going to be on CNN
tomorrow." And we say, "Whoa! Okay, send your camera crew. We're doing
a Passover thing but if you come in the morning ... "

"No, no, you don't understand. You're going to Atlanta first thing in
the morning."

"You have to understand. It's Passover."

"Okay, we'll do New York, we'll fly you to New York. How about if we
send a limo and drive you to Boston?"

I kept saying to the CNN person, "Look, here's my problem. I cooperate
with the press, I believe in the media, but it's Passover, we've got
the house set up. I've just got in from Seattle."

The person said, "You don't understand, yourself. This is CNN. People
die to get on CNN."

"Not me," I said. "It's a little ironic we're talking about a religion
case and you're not willing to appreciate an important Jewish holiday."

They finally arranged to do a taping at the house at 1:00 in the
afternoon. We live on a little street with houses, the typical New
England block in Providence. They closed one end of the street with saw
horses, put up trucks with a dish. Neighbors are coming out taking
pictures of CNN. It was a nice day, the light was good. They made a
studio out of my back porch, a deck arrangement, with incredible wires
and all kinds of stuff. They got Vivian and Deborah since it was a
woman's production and show. I'm inside peeking out.

They asked them each one question. Deborah's question was: "What do
your friends think of this?"

Vivian's question was, "So tell us what happened, tell us the story."
After all this effort, Vivian has three minutes for quick review.
Deborah told them what her friends thought of it, and then they went to
a "panel of experts," and didn't come back to Vivian and Deborah. Then
the show was over! The panel of experts was uninformed, but Vivian's
mike was dead.  They wouldn't let her interrupt with the facts, not
just the facts of our case, but what the Lemon Test says. They were
utterly uninformed.


C-Span, some of the professional media, the American Law Journal, were
excellent. They got to the facts, they were critical, they challenged
us. But most of the electronic media industry ought to be really
suspect.



*     *     *

Why does the religious right keep coming back to the public schools? I
just finished reading Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol. Let me
just tell you something about San Antonio schools.

The inner city district of San Antonio has a school called Cooper
Middle School. In 1988 they spent $2,800 a year per kid. Ten minutes
from town is a neighborhood called Alamo Heights. They spent $4,600 per
year per kid.  Teachers in inner cities have $27,000 a year salaries,
$31,000 in Alamo Heights. The gifted program: $46 per kids, Alamo
Heights; $1 inner city. The taxes raised per kid (through property
tax): $3,600 per kid, Alamo Heights; $924 inner city. In Texas the
range in money spent per kid per year for public education: $2,100 to
$20,000. You know who's in the $2,100 and who's in the $20,000. The tax
base in this state (the amount of value in property behind each kid):
$20,000 is the lowest, and $14 million is the highest.

A funny little side statistic to all this: throughout Texas and
throughout the country, poor communities tax themselves at higher rates
for education. They're prepared to spend more out of the percent of
what they've got, but because the tax base is so low, the disparity is
too great. When these people are in lawsuits challenging the inequities
on constitutional grounds of equal protection, the defense is a
thinly-veiled defense of privilege, of social control by the rich, of
the poor, to serve the needs of the people in charge, and to maintain a
system that if properly challenged would collapse of its own weight, it
is so irrational and abusive.

I don't have any "faith" in conspiracy theory. There's not some room
where the people in charge are meeting and arranging all this. I think
the system works the way the system works. I would argue that prayer
and organized religion in the school is an awfully effective way to
divert people's attention from these real problems.

We're living in a period of time when there's some room for optimism, a
new administration.

But we've got to be there. We've got to stop every little approach at
gaining back the ground we've just won on this little case about prayer
and graduation. They'll be back. We don't have the luxury of saying,
"I'm not going to fight it, I'll take it."

It's nice to be a hero, I enjoy it, I love hearing you say my name; you
can say it all night. It was fun sitting in the Supreme Court hearing
eight justices saying "Weisman this and Weisman that" (Thomas didn't
say anything), but more important, I can live with myself. I think most
people shouldn't be able to live with themselves if they leave these
violations unchallenged.


*     *     *

Daniel Weisman is a Professor of Social Worker at Rhode Island
College.  He was a plaintiff with his daughter Deborah in Lee v.
Weisman. His Ph.D in social work is from Rutgers. He has also worked as
a community organizer.  Vivian Weisman was not a plaintiff in the suit,
simply because she was out of town at the time it was filed. She has a
Master's of Social Worker from the University of Chicago and is
currently assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Center,
Rhode Island.
