An Orthodox spokesman claimed today that a suit filed in Federal Court here Tuesday to enjoin city and federal educational authorities from assigning public school teachers to duties at religious schools during regular school hours was “a deplorable attempt to deprive poor handicapped children of corrective and remedial services so that they should not go through their lives handicapped.”
Dr. Bernard Fryshman, chairman of the Agudath Israel of America’s commission on legislative and civic action, also disputed the contention that the assignments of public school teacher to religious schools was in violation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The suit was filed by the National Coalition for Public Education and Religious Liberty (PEARL) and a group of taxpayers.
It named as defendants Irving Anker. Chancellor of the New York City school system. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. F. David Mathews and U.S. Commissioner of Education. Terrel H. Bell. The government officials are charged with implementing the assignment policy nationally, and Anker with doing the same in the city.
Leo Pfeffer, counsel for PEARL, said the suit was brought “with great reluctance” after Mathews, HEW officials and Anker indicated “that until compelled to do otherwise by a court order, they will continue to do what they have been doing.
ELEMENTS IN THE SUIT
Pfeffer cited as the basis of the suit the case of Meek v. Pittenger which he argued before the Supreme Court last May. The court held at the time that the use of tax-raised funds to finance educational services during regular school hours on religious school premises violates the Establishment clause of the First Amendment.
The suit contends that despite this ruling. Mathews and Bell had administered Title I of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act so as “to authorize educational agencies to assign teachers and other personnel to religious schools in order to perform educational services during regular school hours, and have approved the expenditure of federal funds to finance these services.”
The suit charged Anker with participating in this use of Title I funds by assigning public school teachers and other personnel paid out of these funds “to perform educational services within the religious schools of New York City during regular school hours.”
Fryshman claimed that “these services do not violate the May 19, 1975 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court because the public school teachers who are assigned to non-public schools under Title I of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act merely provide therapeutic aid to disadvantaged children of a nature not provided by the non-public schools as part of their general academic curriculum.”
He claimed that if PEARL won its suit, “It would create unconscionable harm to the handicapped non-public school children who would be different from their peers because they are compelled to spend part of their time in a different school.”
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