Edd Burleson, in full charge, didn\u2019t bother to chew on the question. At age 77, the former small-town state champion football coach, who later served as the superintendent of a Dallas-area school district, made it clear he has neither the time nor patience for political correctness.<\/p>\n
Rather, Burleson, who left public schools in 1989 and has served since in the leadership of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, spit out an answer he knew would raise eyebrows. When finished, he allowed a knowing nod and wry smile to punctuate his words.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have accepted them in the first place,\u201d Burleson responded without hesitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThem\u201d is Beren Academy. And on the first full day of spring, three weeks after Beren and Burleson found themselves in the national and international spotlights, the TAPPS executive director was asked if he had any regrets about his handling of the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat else would you want me to say?\u201d he asked. \u201cWant me to come up with some politically correct gobbledygook? I can\u2019t. I\u2019m telling you that\u2019s how I feel.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Once again, \u201cpolitically correct\u201d turns out to be the favored euphemism for \u201ccommon decency\u201d and \u201cany pretense that I\u2019m not an outright bigot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beren Academy, you\u2019ll recall, was the Jewish school who qualified for TAPPS\u2019 basketball playoffs, but nearly had to forfeit when the association scheduled their first game on a Friday night after sundown. Burleson and TAPPS only rescheduled the game after a wave of public condemnation and the threat of litigation forced their hand. But Burleson doesn\u2019t regret his own clumsy intolerance \u2014 he only regrets living in a world in which he has to interact with Jews, Muslims and anyone else who\u2019s different from him.<\/p>\n
Jewish schools are a marginal minority in TAPPS, and Muslim schools attempting to join the association have been excluded outright. But they\u2019ve found an ally in the Texas Catholic Conference Education Department:<\/p>\n
In the wake of Burleson\u2019s comments, the Texas Catholic Conference Education Department said the group continues to be committed to reforms that would ensure diversity among TAPPS membership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe comments attributed to Mr. Burleson in the media (Sunday) come as a surprise,\u201d the group\u2019s statement read. \u201cAt a meeting with representatives of member schools last week in Belton, Mr. Burleson reportedly conveyed his intention to listen to the concerns of member schools and resolve these issues \u2014 he even scheduled a second meeting in two weeks to discuss it further. If today\u2019s comments are accurate, they are dramatically different from the impressions he gave a week ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Texas Catholic superintendents\u2019 position remains the same. If the concerns are not satisfactorily resolved, Catholic schools will reconsider their future affiliation with TAPPS.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Catholic schools make up about 20 percent of TAPPS. That\u2019s a minority. I\u2019m sure those Catholic schools have been implicitly offered the kind of evil bargain often extended to slightly less-marginal minority factions \u2014 the chance to curry favor with the majority by supporting the exclusion of those even further down the pecking order. Kudos to the Texas Catholics for not playing that ugly little game.<\/p>\n
Their actions on behalf of Jewish and Muslim schools can be seen, from one perspective, as selfless \u2014 they\u2019re not fighting to protect their own rights, or responding to their own mistreatment, but to protect the rights and to correct the mistreatment of others. But from another perspective \u2014 from one that understands how justice works<\/em> and what that Catholic doctrine of solidarity really means \u2014 we can also remember that defending the rights of others is an essential and necessary act of self interest. If others<\/em> can be denied, excluded or mistreated, then you can be too<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been inspiring to see Catholic school administrators getting it right in Texas. Last month, via Charles Kuffner, I shared the story of Catholic schools defending Jewish and Muslim schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Justice means sticking up for other people<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Justice means sticking up for other people\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-06T15:15:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/\",\"name\":\"Justice means sticking up for other people\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-06T15:15:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-06T15:15:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Justice means sticking up for other people\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Justice means sticking up for other people","description":"Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Justice means sticking up for other people","og_description":"Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2012-04-06T15:15:20+00:00","author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/","name":"Justice means sticking up for other people","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-04-06T15:15:20+00:00","dateModified":"2012-04-06T15:15:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/04\/06\/justice-means-sticking-up-for-other-people\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Justice means sticking up for other people"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}