Free association is one of the bedrocks of civil society, so when ‘faith based’ schools start complaining about the secular state interfering with who they can and cannot admit, my first response is to urge these folks to inform the state that it is none of their god-damn business.
It is surely a matter for religious group themselves to define their own congregation. In short, if they actually have any deeply held principles, and if they do not, why call themselves ‘faith based’ at all, they should simply refuse to comply with the state’s demands. Just point blank refuse.
To their credit some Catholic adoption agencies shut down last year due to the state demanding they operate in contravention of Catholic principles (by placing children with homosexual couples), but it remains to be seen if any schools will do likewise and shut down rather than comply, or better yet, simply ignore the regulations on who they admit.
But that said, at the same time that these schools should refuse to obey secular direction of their religious based institutions, they must also refuse to take a single penny of state money. Why? Because if they take the taxpayer’s coin… coin which has been extracted from believers and non-believers via the political system… they cannot then complain if that money comes with politically imposed conditions.
Perry: Seconded! Unless the State has an official religion, either none get funding (and hence the State should butt out) or all get funding (and the State should still damnwell butt out).
Gregory, the State does have an official religion, and should still butt out anyway. For bonus points, it can also stop having an official religion – not being the kind of entity that needs to find or provide spiritual salvation, all its leaders’ delusions to the contrary.
While it is about it, it can throw away its claim to decide which beliefs are privileged ‘religions’ and which are plebeian ‘opinions’. I don’t see why, as a lover of liberty, I should be able to claim extra rights by getting a bunch of mates together and revering her as Sweet Lady Eleutheria. Perhaps the non-formally religious fraction of us ought to do just that, and then start bringing religious discrimination and hate-speech claims against the Government for Suppressing the Sacred Smoke, Stealing the Sweat-Anointed Gold, and Teaching Our Kiddies to Hate Their Ancestral Faith. What a pity I’m not a bigger bluffer than I am!
What I don’t want to see is religious organizations effectively running State franchises – as in the tax-maintained schools – and then claiming a conscientious right to rat on their side of the contract. If their hierarchies really hold to their stated principles, why are they rendering the things that are theirs unto Caesar for cash? You keep your principles, laddies, and good for you – but the rest of us, including no doubt those religions that don’t play the game, want our Bacchus-blessed money back!
Your last paragraph completely contradicts your first paragraph.
The last paragraph is the one that gets it right: if the state provides the money then the state gets to set to the admissions policy.
Churches are free to set up their own schools.
botogol: Are they?
In Malaysia, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, they are not.
In fact, all former missionary and convent schools have been forcibly converted to national schools, although in some cases they have retained the right to appoint a school board and the principal – small consolation against the loss of control over everything else.
So I don’t know what the situation is precisely in the UK.
Gray Woodland: Well, if the State and Church have come to an accommodation, whereby a particular denomination gains especial favour over the others (special legal dispensations, official imprimatur, religious-based discrimination in civil service/political appointments), then any school (and indeed, any other institution) attached to and enjoying the privileges of said denomination must perforce provide quid pro quo. I see no reason that Government should not be treated in good faith if it has acted in accordance with the terms of the accommodation.
Which is entirely different from the State simply saying that any Religion that Builds the Moral Character of the Youth is good, and hence religious schools should be Subsidised for the Good of the People. If such is the argument, then you surely cannot just impose restrictions on the very religion you suppose is so useful.
Although you are right that JFS should not be taking state money, the law as it stands applies equally to all schools whether wholly private, wholly public or somewhere in between. So JFS’s admissions policy would still be illegal even if it were to do what you recommend.
The reason why JFS alone among Jewish schools has been hit is because JFS is alone in making no qualifications for entry based on family observance (which are legal). The reason being that JFS primarily caters to non-observant types who either despise or know nothing about authentic Judaism, but don’t want their kids to go to some sink comprehensive dump.
I couldn’t give a fig about JFS, however. The broader issue here is that the Jewish faith itself has actually been found to be in contravention of British race law (the same race laws that the braindead leadership of Anglo-Jewry have championed in their endless campaign to “stop” the BNP/National Front whilst doing nothing to oppose the immigration of millions of anti-semitic and often violent Muslims). Eventually some bright spark is going to figure out that the law applies equally to membership of synagogues and the like and then it will really get fun.
P.S. Reform conversions are not recognised because they are, to put it mildly, total BS. If you want to check this for yourself just get one. it will only take a month or two and you won’t have to bother with any pesky lifestyle changes.
P.P.S. It is entirely true that the state should only fund CofE schools, but is also true that Jews have a rather better claim to state funding that Roman and Dissenting schools.
“if the state provides the money then the state gets to set to the admissions policy.”
I think this may be the wrong way round. The school gets to set the admissions policy, and then the government gets to decide whether to give taxpayers’ money. That’s almost the same, but not quite.
If contributing money entitles one to set the policy, then since the church also contributes money, it also gets to set policy. If I contribute money to the Labour Party, then I should get to set the government’s policy, right? They can’t take my money and then ignore my conditions, can they? In fact, I could say the same about taxes. Why should I pay taxes to implement policies I don’t support? The whole basis of taxation is founded on the principle of the people paying not getting to decide.
No. If it is the will of the people, expressed through their elected representatives(?!), that schools applying certain sorts of selection criteria should get no state support, then they are entitled to withdraw state funding from schools with policies they don’t like. Judging by the lengths people go to to get their children into church schools, I’d imagine people would rather their hard earned money be spent on schools providing their kids with a decent education, but I wouldn’t know about that. Admissions policy is up to the school. Funding is up to funders.
I didn’t click on the link and assumed this was about the JFS ruling. If my comment ever makes it through spambot, it’s going to look bizarrely irrelevant….
Er, no. The two points I am making is (1) it should be up to the religious organisation who they associate with (i.e. who they admit to their schools) and the state should butt out… but… (2) if they take state money, they cannot then expect it to come with no strings attached, so the price of autonomy is not taking state money.
How is that a contradiction?
Yes this too is true, but a pre-requisite for defying the state and if necessary taking the school underground is not taking state money.
Private schools should simply start calling themselves “kiddie clubs”, deny they are schools at all, and tell the regulators to fuck off (something I would like to see spread across society generally of course).
Better yet, parents should home school when possible.
A good posting Perry.
And one could go further – and I think you would.
For example, former Anglican Archbishop Carey is not a hopeless leftist like Rowen Williams, but even he only says that “religious” people should be allowed to “discriminate” – for forbidding them to (for example) refuse to emply people who engage in homosexual acts, would violate their freedom of religion.
This will not do.
Either freedom is for all people (religious or athiest) or it is for none. Although, yes, I would prefer some people to be free than for no people to be free.
For example, an athiest should be allowed to refuse to emply (or to trade with) a religious person – on the grounds that he does not wish to have anything to do with people who he regards as stupid.
And this in no way violates “freedom of religion”.
Freedom of association must include freedom not to associate – “I do not want to have anything to do with you because you have blond hair” or whatever.
However, at least Carey wants freedom for some people (religious people), as far as I can make out through that mist of words Rowen Williams produces when he opens his mouth, the present Anglican Archbishop of Cantenbury (Rowen the beard) is against freedom for anyone.
@perry – yes if your last paragraph is to the effect that your first response was wrong, then yes, they reconcile 🙂
@gabriel – yes, it’s true the law applies to all. But the law says all schools ARE free to discrminate on grounds of religion, but NOT allowed to discriminate on grounds of race.
The problem for British Jewry face is that in law they are defined as a ‘race’ (as well, separately, as a religion).
Until very recently this legal silliness worked greatly in their favour (indeed they campaigned for it). But now that religions are protected by law anyway it probably works against them.
Eventually we will probably see British Jews going to the ECHR trying to force repeal of the definition of Jews as a ‘race’ on the grounds that it amounts to religious discrimination to define them, and not other religions, that way. (!)
I would go even farther than Paul Marks. Religious organizations should reject (indeed, I would prefer that they be denied outright) tax-exempt status. Such status requires that the organization submit to various forms of governmental control which it should be free to reject or accept at its discretion.
Botogol, you missed Perry’s point entirely. The two paragraphs are not in contradiction; they are disjunctive. Religious schools should be free to admit whoever they choose, but if they take state money the game is changed and the state now (properly) has a say in the admissions policy. “He who pays the piper calls the tune”, as they say. Pay the piper yourself and you call the tune.
Spot on, with the one possible exception of “state money.”
Presumably you mean the money the state took off the parents by force in order to support failing schools and so deprive the parents of the money they need to be able to send their children to a school which will give their children an education?
If the state got out of the education business things would be so much easier…
But he wrote:
So I think he made it pretty clear that the state’s money is our money.
Paul:
That’s a principle I would love to categorically support, but the consequential spoiler is bigotry. If enough people choose not to associate with a specific type of person — based on un-chosen traits such as race or ethnicity — then the people with those traits will effectively lose their liberty through inability to interact equally with society at large. For me, that is an example of one person’s freedom to swing his fist stopping short of another person’s nose. It’s probably necessary to have some legal constraints on freedom of association (such as not allowing a restaurant to refuse to serve a customer because of his race) in order to protect other liberties.
We have historically treated religion as a trait that a person is born into, like race or gender, even though it’s actually chosen. To some degree, I think we’re stuck with that because bigots, themselves, frequently don’t discriminate between religion and ethnicity. That is, if they hate the religion they will discriminate against everyone of the ethnicity they associate with that religion, whether the person actually subscribes to that religion or not.
I don’t have a solid answer to these conflicting principles (i.e., freedom of association, freedom of belief or conscience, and racism); I have only ever been able to resolve them on a case-by-case basis. I think, for example, that a Catholic school should not be required to allow non-Catholic students or staff. But, at the same time, I don’t think a school that defines itself on some basis other than religious belief (say, a Montessori school) should be allowed to deny entry to someone on the basis of his religious belief.
Since it’s liable to come up: Yes, I would regard a school based on atheism as one that defines itself on the basis of religious belief. An exclusive definition rather than an inclusive one, but still based on religious belief. I guess that raises the question of whether an atheist school should be eligible for funding by taxation if a Catholic school is not. I would say no — at least, not if they denied entry to religious believers.
So you are saying your ‘liberty’ can involve compel me by law to associate with you? So you do not in fact believe in freedom of association then. What you may define as bigotry I might define as just wishing to associate with who I want to associate with. What if the un-chosen trait is a lack if intelligence… a person cannot help being stupid, but must I be forced to employ him, to my detriment, regardless of my wishes? I am very ‘bigoted’ when it comes to stupid people.
Really? How is compelling me to associate with you if I do not wish to the same as compelling me to not assault you? Sure these are materially different things.
Perry:
I would love to categorically support the principle of freedom of association; that is, I would love to simply say “freedom of association trumps all; no other principle can come before it and no resulting consequence, no matter now negative, can compromise it.” The problem for me is that I can’t abide the outcome of people being discriminated against on arbitrary and capricious grounds, such as race, which history tells us will result.
It doesn’t follow that I would force you to associate with people on the basis of factors that make a material difference (intelligence, or even beauty, for example). But, yes, I would probably support a law that said you couldn’t refuse to do business with someone solely on the basis of your objection to some trait, such as race, that is irrelevant to the business being conducted and about which they have no choice.
For me, these are situations where principles conflict and, as such, tidy solutions aren’t easily found. You’re correct that my use of the fist-and-nose analogy wasn’t proper in this context. This isn’t a clear-cut case of freedom versus force, it’s a case where a principle is empirically known to result in consequences that are, to me, unacceptable on the basis of other principles. It’s a rare case where I’ll go with consequential moral reasoning over categorical moral reasoning, but this is one of them.
Does the refusal to associate cause harm to others?
If it does not, because there are plenty of other restaurants, then there’s no justification to interfere.
Pa Annoyed:
I realize that I’m making a slippery-slope argument. But a slippery slope argument isn’t really a fallacy anymore once there’s empirical evidence that the slope exists, and I believe history provides us with ample evidence that it does.
If I could be convinced that we would never see an entire race or ethnic group effectively prevented from exercising their full liberty because a solid majority freely chooses not to associate with them, then I would categorically support freedom of association, unconstrained in any way. But, as it stands at the moment, I don’t see that as a likely outcome.
No you are not making a ‘slippery slope’ argument. You are actually making the prime argument that underpins the statist position. In short, you believe that civil society, without the state imposing positive rights, will always produce intolerable results (i.e. that a critical mass of people will act appallingly even without the state acting appallingly on their behalf). The classical liberal/minarchist position however is that limiting state power to standing behind negative rights means that one man’s bigotry is another man’s business opportunity.
Once you accept the position that the state exists to impose the positive rights favoured by the politically active, it is a delusion to think several ‘liberty’ can be an objective. If I do not get to chose who I do business with, there is simply no basis upon which to argue for several liberty. Statist control over just about anything that can produce ‘bad’ outcomes will follow just as night follows day… it is just a matter of time.
This is not just some minor or arcane philosophical point, it is the very crux of the issue of the political/ideological struggle for or against several liberty.
Perry:
No, that’s not what I believe at all. But if I’ve lead you to think that’s what I believe then I apologize for failing to properly explain my position.
I had no intention of proposing any right at all. I’m not saying anybody has a right to do business with you whether you want them to or not. I’m saying you both have a right to do business together if you mutually agree, but also that their race alone is not a legitimate reason for you not agreeing to do business with them. Yes, I can see how that could be construed as a positive right, and I admit that can’t yet explain why you should not think it so, but I do see it as different.
Also, there is no “always” in my point, whatsoever. I tried to carefully state that I was discussing a specific case, or type of case, where historically demonstrated consequences are in conflict with the principle of free association (a principle that I value very highly). I realize that this is a compromise of pure principle, and I don’t make the compromise lightly, I find it distasteful. Just less distasteful than racism. I can’t think of any other case where I would apply this reasoning.
I see this question of free association and racial discrimination as being similar to the classic example of falsely shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater. We don’t constrain the right of free speech in that case because the speech is false, we constrain it because the false speech has consequences. I admit that it’s not a perfect parallel; the negative consequences of one can reasonably expected to happen every time, or nearly so, whereas the consequences of the other are cumulative, and only arise when a critical mass of such instances occur. But I believe the historical evidence makes the connection between the single instance and the cumulative consequences much more than just speculation, in this case. I heartily join you in opposing consequentialist arguments in support of drug prohibition, market regulation, or what have you. They don’t have the solid base of empirical evidence that racism does.
You would be correct in saying that I haven’t, and maybe can’t, make a case that even cumulative, widespread racial discrimination is a violation of anyone’s liberty, in that the discrimination isn’t practiced by the state. But the tyranny of the majority can operate through mechanisms other than the state.
There is no other way to construe it. You are saying you want the state to compel me to do business with people I may not wish to do business with, i.e. that people have a positive right to do business with me and I cannot deny them. That is what a positive right is pretty much by definition.
It is not a parallel at all really as they are materially different things. if I take a positive act to harm you (shouting “fire” falsely in a theatre), then I am objectively taking action likely to cause you harm with either malice of forethought or at the very least gross negligence. However if all I want is to avoid being in your presence, for whatever reason, that is hardly the same thing.
Let me put it this way: allowing the state to impose positive rights favoured by whoever dominates the political process means accepting that assigning positive rights is what the state is for. And from that point onwards, politics is just about who gets to decide what people are compelled to do. Once the state becomes more than a nightwatchman, the entire character changes from defender to imposer.
Your empirical evidence that only the state can prevent racism is what, exactly? I would argue that almost all the baleful effects of racism are a consequence of statism, because without statism preventing it, in any extended society a market will not go un-served for long. I do not care if someone is racist as long as that person cannot use the state to impose his racists views on people unwilling to subscribe to them.
If a bus company insists that blacks sit at the back of a bus, then that is a wonderful business opportunity for a non-racist bus company. If however the state prevent new market entrants into the bus business, or even worse, demands that all buses require blacks to sit at the back, the problem there is statism, not ‘mere’ racism, because even a bus company run by non-racists cannot allow blacks to sit where they damn well please due to a regulatory state setting the policy they must follow.
Once you accept that the state can be permitted to assign positive rights, far from ensuring the minimums of decency, you actually place decency at the mercy of the ebb and flow of politics. On both moral, and even consequentialist grounds, that is a bad idea.
Agreed, though I suspect you have not quite thought through the implications for the whole women-in-the-workplace social system we now live in.
And your suspicions would be incorrect, Gabriel.
It’s not the state’s money though is it? It’s our money and so the only people whose opinion should count is ours. If parents like the schools’ admission policy it’s not the business of anyone else to interfere. And the evidence is that parents do like faith schools on the whole.
This issue only arises because the state has interposed itself between parents and schools and remember that most church schools existed long before the state started sticking its nose in. Give the money back to the parents and let them spend it on whichever damn school they want. Let the school answer to the parents.
Personally, I’d trust the Catholic church over Ed Balls or any of the other cretins pretending to be Education Secretary.
It seems to me that jjamess has holed Perry’s argument below the waterline. It’s all very well saying that people should organise their own schools and not take the state’s money, but if the state has nicked all your money to start with, you don’t have that option. Which is why only the rich can send their kids to private schools, free to organise their own affairs and admissions policies (though increasingly less so.) You can get stuck into your purist “don’t take the state’s coin” stuff, only when the state leaves you a few coppers of your own money.
Sorry Lee but you are falling in to the classic statist trap. By saying “the state taxes us for education so we must just argue over how the details of how and what schools get funded”.
Wrong.
Then argue and work towards not allowing the state to take your money to fund “education”! And part of that practicle real world process is to point out to people like “faith based” schools that when you take politically extracted money from other people, you lose your autonomy, and faith based ANYTHING is about people of that faith having the autonomy to practice that faith, and you cannot do that if you allow your faith to be funded via the political system.
It is not a “purist” argument at all, it is a “consequentialist” and “practicle” argument and jjames actually agrees with me broadly… but the point he is making in disagreement is actually a mistake both pedantically and practically: once the state take YOUR money, is now the STATE’S money.
I don’t disagree with you in theory, but in practice if and so long as the state takes 50% of everything that is produced in the country, it is not practical for most people trying to educate their children to ignore the state education offering and all its loathsome conditions. Sure, tell people that taking the state’s coin makes you beholden to the state. But steps one, two and three are to reduce the quantity of state coin. You have to start from where you are, not where you’d like to be. Although it’s a nasty statist half way house, vouchers are a plausible first step on the way to get from where we are now to where we’d like to be. And although Gove’s policies are a miserable quarter step they are one of the very few areas in which a socialist Conservative government just might be marginally better than a socialist Labour government.