Government Defendants Settle in Salvation Army Case

Tuesday, 16 February 2010 23:16

It has been six years since the Salvation Army Greater New York Division’s Social Services for Children unit was torn apart by an abrupt change of leadership and charges that the organization was engaging in religious cleansing. Yesterday, a lawsuit filed by 18 former and current employees against the Salvation Army, as well as the government agencies with which it contracted, was settled -- at least in part. The Government defendants in the case agreed to a system for monitoring social service organizations receiving government funds to ensure that they do not force people in need of services to engage in religious activities, such as worship or religious instruction. The procedures and standards will also ensure that recipients of social services are not discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.

The government agencies agreeing to the settlement are New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services and Department of Juvenile Justice, NYS Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, the NYS Department of Health, Nassau County’s Department of Social Services and the Suffolk County Department of Social Services.

The original lawsuit, Lown v The Salvation Army, had been brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union in response to an effort by The Salvation Army to require social workers and other employees in its government-funded social services programs to identify their church affiliation, the frequency of their church attendance, and to sign an endorsement of The Salvation Army's mission to "preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ." (For more on the events and allegations leading up to the law suit, see NYNP’s May 2004 cover story, “The Battle of 14^th Street”.)

Both plaintiffs and the NYCLU saw the settlement agreement as a significant victory.

"This agreement protects the religious freedom of all New Yorkers who rely on faith-based organizations for crucial government-funded and mandated social services," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. "Our taxpayer money shouldn't support religious indoctrination of anyone - particularly children. And no one should be subject to proselytizing because they need adoption, foster care, child care or HIV services."

"When The Salvation Army's religious mission was made mandatory in our work place, it changed the climate in a way that caused us fear and concern about our ability to ethically deliver services," said Marina Obermaier, a social worker who worked for eight years with Salvation Army foster families in New York City and on Long Island. "Our ethical commitment as social workers means that we may not be judgmental or refuse to offer services to our clients that are beneficial to them."

"One of the underpinnings of social work is that you start where the client is," said Anne Lown, the former associate executive director of The Salvation Army who worked there for 24 years. "If you're preaching an agency's religion to the client, you're not starting where the client is and you're not respecting the client."

"In this field you deal with the most vulnerable population possible, and it's wrong to push religious beliefs on vulnerable people," said Mary Jane Dessables, a social worker and an ordained elder in her Nassau County Presbyterian Church and former management information systems director for The Salvation Army who worked for the charity for 12 years.

Under the two-year settlement agreement, every government agency named in The Salvation Army lawsuit has adopted auditing procedures or standards of conduct to ensure that social service organizations that receive government funds do not force people in need of services to engage in religious activities, such as worship or religious instruction.

Today's agreement partially settles the NYCLU's lawsuit. The litigation contended that under a reorganization plan initiated in 2003, the Salvation Army began to introduced greater religious control over its government-funded social services. The NYCLU's lawsuit claimed that, when government agencies provide funding to religious organizations to administer social services such as foster care or day care, the agencies are constitutionally required to monitor the programs to ensure that religious organizations do not use government money to engage in religious indoctrination of the beneficiaries of the programs. The suit also claimed that federal, state and local anti-discrimination laws prohibited The Salvation Army from discriminating on the basis of religion against social workers employed in government-funded programs. Finally, the suit claimed that two employees were constructively terminated from their jobs for protesting The Salvation Army's introduction of religion into the workplace.

In 2005, a federal judge recognized that the city and state agencies cannot allow religious organizations to use government funds to proselytize or to impose religious messages on those who rely on them for social services, and allowed those claims to go forward. The settlement with the government agencies emerges out of that ruling.

In the same ruling, the judge dismissed claims that The Salvation Army and government agencies had engaged in impermissible employment discrimination when it required employees in the government-funded programs to disclose their religious beliefs and practices and to pursue the evangelical Christian mission of The Salvation Army. That ruling can be appealed at the close of the case in the trial court. Also, the 2005 decision did not dismiss the claims of the two employees who claimed constructive discharge for protesting The Salvation Army's introduction of religion in the workplace, and the litigation of those claims against The Salvation Army is continuing.

NYNP was unable to reach a Salvation Army spokesperson for comment.

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