White House Expands Faith-Based Initiatives Which May Lead to Religious Employment Discrimination
This week, The New York Times published an article reporting that on February 5, 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order to revamp the White House’s office for religious-based and neighborhood programs. The Executive Order will expand the office, which provides government support to religious organizations and charities that provide vital social services to its surrounding neighborhood communities, an initiative launched under the direction of former President George W. Bush.
Obama’s expansion of the office, however, has not settled the ongoing debate over whether these faith-based organizations that receive Federal grants for their social service programs may legally discriminate on the basis of religion, hiring only those individuals whom share their faith.
The former administration held the firm belief that faith-based organizations could indeed hire based on religious belief, a position that elicited fierce debate between religious groups and other interested groups and individuals concerned with keeping church and state separated. There is obvious potential for employment discrimination on the one hand, and religious groups that wanted to preserve their right to use religion as a hiring criterion, have threatened to discontinue their participation in the government program if they are forced to change their policies. However, the current administration has taken the position that the faith-based policy should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis prior to the determination of whether a particular group can receive Federal funds and hire employees based on their religious beliefs.
Joshua DuBois, Director of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, acknowledges the need for case-by-case review due to the lack of clarity in this policy field. However, DuBois leaves the door open for possible recommendations from the administration for legislative action on the issue of the legality of religious-based hiring discrimination upon receipt of Federal funds in the future, in the event that his office consistently comes up with the same findings in its reviews.
