The
Huffington Post on Monday carried a lengthy and interesting article detailing the legal and strategic decisions on both sides in the widely-publicized battle of a Houston, Texas Orthodox Jewish school to get officials to accommodate its Sabbath observance in a recent statewide basketball tournament. (See
prior posting.) The battle pitted parents of students at the Beren Jewish Academy against the the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), a league originally comprised of a few dozen Christian schools. As the league expanded to over 200 schools, it added Jewish and Seventh Day Adventist (but not Muslim) ones, but without dealing with the issue of religious accommodation:
By admitting to the league but not accommodating Saturday Sabbath observers, TAPPS could cling to some semblance of its Christian and non-ecumenical identity while seeming to obey the law and not discriminate against other religions.
The legal moves began when a parent of a Beren basketball player phoned Washington, DC lawyer Nathan Lewin, perhaps the best known litigator on behalf of Jewish interests:
The stars seemed aligned for the supposed plaintiffs and their litigators. On the one side, an intransigent and unaccommodating association of religious schools; on the other side, a squad of kids with knitted yarmulkes longing for a chance to score hoops..... [However] the school wanted nothing to do with the suit or the effort. Beren's head of school Rabbi Sinoff verbalized the reluctance this way: "We do value success in the modern world. But not at the expense of who we are -- Shomer Shabbos (strict Sabbath observers)." Rabbi Sinoff added a phrase right out of Jewish history stating, "This is about asking nicely, not about demanding a right. No demand."
However, lawyers in a Dallas law firm, enlisted by Lewin, ultimately moved ahead and filed a request for a TRO. Within two hours, TAPPS backed down and agreed to reschedule the Beren games to accommodate their Sabbath observance. However the furor is creating problems for TAPPS. The Texas Catholic Conference, whose schools comprise nearly 20% of TAPPS is reconsidering its membership in the league, both because of the way the Beren issue was handled and because of the league's refusal to admit Muslim schools.
