Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

Friends Seminary – Fired Teacher Will Return

Frisch is about as far from being “Nazi friendly” as you could want. Although he’s a longtime Quaker, his ancestors were European and Jewish, and some were lost in the Holocaust. He doesn’t need a “diversity officer” to brief him on all that. Nevertheless, he was canned within a couple weeks. In a letter to students, the principal, Bo Lauter, wrote, “Our students know that words and signs of hate and fear have no place at Friends . . . .”

But in fact there was much more diversity of view at FS about whether Frisch’s obtuse angle quip constituted “words and signs of hate.” Frisch’s firing set off a firestorm: petitions on his behalf were signed by hundreds of students, and hundreds of alumni (after all, he had taught at FS for 34 years without any complaints; he knew lots of alumni). There was even a sit-in.

Dog Days Reading: A Tale of Two Nightmares: One Asleep, One Wide Awake

Nightmare Number one, wide awake: In the summer of 1959, my father, an Air Force bomber pilot, was transferred to a base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. There my mother sent me and several of my siblings to St. Mary’s, the Catholic school downtown. It was across the street from the state Capitol. St. Mary’s was run … Continue reading Dog Days Reading: A Tale of Two Nightmares: One Asleep, One Wide Awake →

Another “Quaker” School Makes Waves

As a journalist, I mostly have the “Quaker beat” to myself: Friends are a tiny sect, known mostly for being “quaint,” the inventors of oatmeal, riders in buggies, and extinct. (Never mind that the last three are not true; they’re still what we’re “known” for, by many in what the elders used to call “the world,” when such folk bother to think about us at all.) So when I report on Quaker stuff, it’s rare that I have to compete with “normal” reporters.

But sometimes I get scooped; and that happened again today, and in no less an outlet than the New York Times. (But hey, if you’re gonna get scooped, it might as well be by the best.)

And why would the Times bother with us? If you don’t already know, think for a minute: The Times’ base constituency is the affluent (and up) of the nation’s largest city. And what artifact of Quakerism are such moneyed folk most likely to bump into? (Hint: nothing to do with oatmeal.)

Friends Central School Lawsuit: The Fired Teachers Begin to Make Their Case

“At first blush, this matter deals simply with a motion to dismiss a civil rights case with pendent claims as Defendants claim protection under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution. However, the attack amounts to something much more, something dangerously precedent-setting were it to be approved, namely that a private school and those affiliated with it are exempt from the reach of Federal and State Civil Rights Acts. This is all despite Friends Central’s professed adherence to notions of responsibility, equality and diversity. When the rubber meets the road, these Defendants are insisting that they are untouchable and above it all.

However, Defendants fail any applicable test. In no way do Plaintiffs’ claims require inquiry into religious tenets of Quakerism. Plaintiffs do not make any claims or counts based therein. Rather, Plaintiffs Complaint references guidelines and policies set forth by the school so as to depict the environment in which Plaintiffs worked and to justify their adherence to those guidelines and policies. . . .

Should this Court accept Defendants’ arguments, then there is nothing to keep any purportedly religious school from claiming immunity from the Civil Rights laws, or any other laws for that matter, taking us back to the dark ages in American jurisprudence. . . .

New Split, Old Issue: Same Sex Marriage Rends Wilmington YM

(AFL): Let me try to be clear on this: was the key point of contention at WYM, at least as stated, not the issue of same sex marriage itself, but more what the YM should do about meetings that were willing to tolerate being in a yearly meeting where some other meetings do support same sex marriage? [Note: An extensive collection of minutes from meetings in WYM is in Attachment #4: : INDIVIDUAL MEETING STATEMENTS ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE AND/OR WYM UNITY” of the 2017 WYM Minutes, online in full here.]

SA: Great question. While that seems generally to be true, let me hasten to add that, among the constellation of areas of disagreement, there is no consensus among the Friends staying and those disaffiliating as to which area of disagreement is paramount. Many Friends disaffiliating see the lack of fidelity to a literal interpretation of Scripture, at least as they understand it, as a paramount issue. When addressing the grounds for the current set of disagreements, an initial draft of the WYM Epistle specified that “Biblical interpretation is at the heart of our uneasiness and distrust.”