Statement on Equal Educational Opportunity
Diocesan Press Service. May 17, 1972 [72059]
In the recent past, school busing has become a major topic of controversy in this nation. Christians, out of concern for the nation, for children and for education, are caught up in discussion of the constellation of issues surrounding busing. In the light of our Faith in God, as revealed in Our Lord, the Executive Council offers this testimony:
The purpose of God - made known to us - is that all things "in heaven and in earth might be brought into a unity in Christ." The power of God has been and is active in our national history, breaking down the barriers that divide men. While as a nation we fall short of that unity with liberty and justice for all, toward which God is moving us, it has been the glory of our country that public policy, political leadership, and citizen concern have been directed toward the creation of a unified nation with equal opportunity for all citizens.
We are currently in a national debate on whether we shall continue in that direction. The present form of that debate is whether children - black and white, rich and poor - shall be transported out of their immediate residential neighborhoods to provide them with equal opportunity for quality education in the real world of racial and economic diversity. While busing is necessary to accomplish this purpose in many communities, the real issue is not busing. Busing has been widespread in both public and private education for many years: it continues to be so today. The real issue is whether we will continue in the direction of becoming a unified nation with equal quality, educational opportunity for all.
The Supreme Court of the United States has held that segregated education is inherently unequal. Educators hold that quality education must be integrated: "in a multi-racial society, a person cannot be considered educated if he remains unexposed on a personal basis to the cultural richness and the individual diversity of his neighbors." * Our concern as Christians must be for the unity of God's people, His family, and for the individual development of each child within that family.
Equal quality education is a worthy goal: valuable enough to elicit sacrificial effort to provide more funds, new methods of funding, new facilities, new teaching methods and new goals to reflect the needs and opportunities of our children in our society.
We have freedom under God to make our future. Freedom implies a risk that we, through fear, might take advantage of it for our own selfish purposes. A great legacy we can give our children is an understanding of the variety in the family of God, and skill in living with justice within the family. Freedom, exercised on the side of equal quality education, involves individual cost until the legacy of the past is overcome. A willingness to accept the cost of past inequities and injustice is a sign of freedom now, and a guarantor of freedom tomorrow.
We urge our brethren to stand fast in the freedom which Christ has given, and to discover the wisdom and strength He has to give. Specifically we invite you to try, with us, to penetrate beneath irrational and unworthy fears to reach the worthy public value of quality education for all our children.
* From the policy statement on school integration adopted by the New York State Board of Regents, March 24, 1972.
Adopted by the
Executive Council
Episcopal Church
May 17, 1972