{"id":794315,"date":"2021-09-20T10:59:19","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T14:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=794315"},"modified":"2021-09-20T10:59:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T14:59:21","slug":"these-catholic-and-historically-black-colleges-were-denied-covid-relief-the-naacp-and-its-georgetown-legal-team-fought-to-make-that-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/these-catholic-and-historically-black-colleges-were-denied-covid-relief-the-naacp-and-its-georgetown-legal-team-fought-to-make-that-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"These Catholic And Historically Black Colleges Were Denied COVID Relief. The NAACP And Its Georgetown Legal Team Fought To Make That Happen."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">44<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthese-catholic-and-historically-black-colleges-were-denied-covid-relief-the-naacp-and-its-georgetown-legal-team-fought-to-make-that-happen%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=794315&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-89019045.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>If you didn\u2019t know better, you might think that racism and anti-Catholicism are alive and well among several groups purportedly dedicated to rooting out just that sort of prejudice.<\/p>\n<p>In an eyebrow-raising move, lawyers at Georgetown University, a Catholic institution, teamed up with the NAACP, the civil rights group defending black Americans, against a Catholic diocese and a group of Catholic and historically black colleges in South Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>The groups took up this awkward position after&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scicu.org\/about-scicu\/\">21 independent<\/a> colleges and universities joined the Catholic diocese of Charleston in filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against part of the state constitution, which they say wrongly deprived them of essential COVID relief last year. The diocese runs 33 Catholic K-12 schools.<\/p>\n<p>The NAACP\u2019s South Carolina arm, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/icap\/our-work\/protecting-young-people-and-vulnerable-groups\/bishop-of-charleston-v-adams\/\">represented<\/a> by a team of Georgetown lawyers, filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/icap\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/32\/2021\/06\/2021.06.16-Motion-to-Intervene-41.pdf\">motion<\/a> to intervene in the case in June, arguing that public schools should be prioritized for relief funds. A federal judge, however, threw out the NAACP\u2019s bid to insert itself and become a party in the case.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/ljc-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/2021\/07\/2021-06-25-Plaintiff-Opposition-to-Motion-to-Intervene-Bishop-v-Adams.pdf\">case<\/a> centers around two pots of COVID relief money that the diocese and a group of private <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scicu.org\/about-scicu\/\">colleges<\/a>, South Carolina\u2019s Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU), say they missed out on.<\/p>\n<p>The first pot is South Carolina\u2019s $<span>25 million program that <a href=\"https:\/\/accelerate.sc.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/Documents\/Final%2010.13.20%20Nonprofit%20Relief%20Grant%20Program%20Design.pdf\">provided<\/a> grants between $2,500 and $50,000 to nonprofits for pandemic-related costs. <\/span><span>The other chunk of COVID aid is $32 million in CARES Act funding that Republican Gov. Henry McMaster allocated for one-time, needs-based tuition vouchers of up to $6,500. Those grants would allow parents to send their kids to Catholic or other private schools if they desired. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>As part of the relief, the governor had also <a href=\"https:\/\/governor.sc.gov\/news\/2020-07\/gov-henry-mcmaster-invests-24-million-historically-black-colleges-and-universities\">planned<\/a> to give $2.4 million to <span>historically black colleges for pandemic-related costs like updating their technology for remote classes. He ended up <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/henry-mcmaster-lawsuits-south-carolina-courts-virus-outbreak-3d346ec64f6f6db6dadac0bf4f85867a\">withholding<\/a> the money once legal challenges were launched.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit from the schools comes after the state Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2020\/10\/07\/sc-supreme-court-strikes-down-gov-mcmasters-safe-grants-program\/\">struck down<\/a> the governor\u2019s tuition voucher program last year. The suit that led to that decision was brought by a coalition that included the South Carolina Education Association, an affiliate of the largest public school teachers\u2019 union in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Deepening the irony of the NAACP and its Georgetown legal team\u2019s attempt to get involved, they cited and defended the state\u2019s archaic Blaine Amendment, which has a history steeped in anti-Catholicism and racism. The amendment prohibits the state from giving \u201cdirect aid\u201d to religious or other private schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution,\u201d the South Carolina state constitution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scstatehouse.gov\/scconstitution\/SCConstitution.pdf\">reads<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The diocese and colleges countered in court <a href=\"https:\/\/ljc-assets.s3.amazonaws.com\/2021\/04\/2021-04-14-Bishop-of-Charleston-v-Adams-Complaint.pdf\">documents<\/a> that the Blaine Amendment \u201cwas born in bigotry and prejudice based on race and religion\u201d and \u201cviolates the equal protection and free exercise clauses of the U.S. Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The history of Blaine Amendments in the U.S. is long and ugly. They rose in the late nineteenth century across the country and were adopted in 38 state constitutions, part of a wave of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that gained momentum as more immigrants arrived in the U.S. from Catholic countries like Ireland, <span>Poland, and Italy. As Catholic schools began to multiply in the country, a movement grew to prevent public funding being siphoned away from public schools to Catholic schools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The origin of South Carolina\u2019s Blaine Amendment has another layer of bigotry. It was added to the state\u2019s constitution <span>after the Civil War <\/span>to choke off funds going to the Catholic schools that were educating newly freed slaves. <span>The South Carolina Constitution of 1895 was infamous among southern Reconstruction era constitutions for introducing a literacy test for voting. A literacy test , however, would not stop former slaves from voting as long as Catholic missionaries were teaching them basic literacy. <\/span>Over a century later, the amendment is still on the books in South Carolina, albeit in a slightly modified form.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are here to stand up for children and families across South Carolina and to face head on the anti-Catholic and the racist history in our state\u2019s constitution,\u201d Charleston Bishop Robert Guglielmone <a href=\"https:\/\/www.live5news.com\/2021\/04\/14\/catholic-diocese-charleston-files-lawsuit-against-state\/\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Blaine Amendments have been challenged in recent years, including in a high-profile Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/19pdf\/18-1195_g314.pdf\">case<\/a> last year that scrutinized<span>&nbsp;Montana\u2019s version of the amendment. <\/span>In his concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito detailed the bigoted history of Blaine amendments, saying they were \u201cprompted by virulent prejudice against immigrants, particularly Catholic immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you\u2019ve got Georgetown \u2013 Catholic Jesuit institution \u2013 spending money to fight Catholic schools. And you\u2019ve got NAACP filing a lawsuit to stop money from going to historically black colleges. That is how much these people hate school choice,\u201d Liberty Justice Center attorney <span class=\"il\">Daniel<\/span>&nbsp;<span class=\"il\">Suhr, who represents <span>the private colleges, told The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cBoth the NAACP and Georgetown have to minimize prejudice against their own communities historically in order to make their argument in favor of stopping school choice,\u201d added Suhr, who is a Georgetown law graduate himself. <\/span><span>\u201cIt\u2019s just disappointing and sad. It\u2019s this really cynical use of this provision that\u2019s been on the books for a century because it\u2019s convenient to advance their political agenda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you didn\u2019t know better, you might think that racism and anti-Catholicism are alive and well among several groups purportedly dedicated to rooting out just that sort of prejudice.In an &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}