American Civil Liberties Union: Stop Religious Discrimination in Head Start


Stop Religious Discrimination in Head Start




The Head Start program may become a victim of federally funded religious discrimination. Instead of supporting civil rights protections, legislation pending before the Congress would allow Head Start programs to discriminate on the basis of religion.

The Head Start program provides educational opportunities to many of the nation's youth -- last year more than 900,000 children enrolled in the program (95 percent were younger than five years old). It also allows parents to participate in their childrens' education -- 1,450,000 parents volunteer in positions such as teacher aides and chaperones. The Head Start program also provides excellent job training and opportunities for poverty-stricken families. Last year 29 percent of Head Start program staff members were parents of current or former Head Start children.

Provisions in the Head Start re-authorization bill (H.R. 2210) would remove many of the civil rights protections currently found in the Head Start program. Under this new legislation, religious organizations involved in Head Start would be allowed to fire Head Start teachers who do not belong to the same religion. It would also restrict parents from volunteering with their children's education.

Take Action! Urge your Members of Congress to oppose federally funded religious discrimination!

This legislation harms teachers and people seeking teaching posts.
Thousands of Head Start teachers could lose their jobs if they fail their employer's religious tests.
Countless parents would furthermore be blocked from climbing the ladder out of poverty that has already allowed thousands of parents to go from being a parent volunteer to being a trained and paid Head Start teacher -- simply because they do not share the federally funded employer's religious beliefs.

This legislation harms parent volunteers.
The proposed bill is so broadly written that it would automatically disqualify parents from becoming classroom volunteers because they subscribe to a different faith than the group running the program. Religious discrimination against parent volunteers could take the form of either blocking parent volunteers from all volunteer opportunities in their children's classroom, or giving inferior volunteer assignments to parents who do not share the employer's religious beliefs.

This Act would allow violations of the Constitution.
The Constitution prohibits the government from using federal dollars to fund religious discrimination in hiring for government-funded jobs. The Head Start re-authorization bill would therefore authorize unconstitutional religious discrimination.