Did New Trier Violate the Separation of Church and State?

FOIA GRAS Sunday Edition where we explore topics in theology, anti-racism, and New Trier

FOIAGRAS is a free newsletter run by Tom Hayden (FOIA GRAS LLC) that explores various topics in local Evanston (and now North Suburban Chicago) Governance. I publish and share all my data and reports. Subscribing is free, so please subscribe or share. Email (tom@foiagras.com) or comment with issues or mistakes.

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This has been a hard story for me to write. Not for any specific technical reason but because it involves religious disagreements within a community that I am not a member of. I hope the complexity of the story becomes apparent to my readers.

This story mostly takes place in New Trier. Just like in Evanston, New Trier hires a firm called the Pacific Education Group (PEG) to conduct anti-racism training. I’ve written about PEG here and here; they’re a for-profit corporation located in Washington DC that offers the Beyond Diversity™ and Courageous Conversation®. Locally, the training is given to teachers in Evanston, New Trier, Skokie, and others. The sessions are facilitated by either PEG, an in-house Beyond Diversity™ certified staff member or an external consultant (Such as Full Circle Leadership or Corrie LLC).

This costs real money. Below are just the 2022-23 SY costs, which don’t include expenses related to sending staff to the annual PEG conferences. These contracts are usually awarded on a no-bid basis inline with 105 ILCS 5/10-20.21 (a)(i).¹

The Email and the Prayer

This story is not about the training, you can read my prior story to get a sense of the content of sessions.² This story is about an email, sent in August 2020 from the PEG facilitator to the Jewish Affinity Group at New Trier. This email was obtained by FOIA request.

Redactions are My Own

The URL links to a racial equity challenge offered by the Jewish Emergent Network. Step 1 of the challenge is to “Read the Al Chet,” a prayer. You can read the prayer at this link. The prayer is controversial; here’s a snippet that certainly caught my attention (make sure you read the context on the prayer below).

For the sins we have committed through the denial of the tzelem elokim (the divine spark) within Black bodies

For the sins we have committed through segregating Black bodies from participation and leadership within our institutions.

For the sins we have committed in deceiving others by not teaching our children the worth, value and contributions of Black people.

For the sins we have committed in not honoring and protecting the journeys of Black elders and Black children.

For the sins we have committed in commoditizing Black people and Black bodies in our business dealings.

For the sins we have committed in not caring for the ways that race and class intersect in our efforts to deepen community with Black people in Jewish spaces.

For the sins we have committed through turning Black bodies into objects of lust and sexual gratification.

It is important to put the prayer in context.³ The Al Chet is a prayer read by Jewish people on Yom Kippur. The prayer is a confession of sins, both communal and individual. Those who come from the Christian tradition may find this foreign (I did!). While there is penance in Christianity, there’s no collective penance.⁴ Additionally, there is some flexibility with the language of the prayer. You can find all sorts of different Al Chets online such as this one, this one with climate change modifications, or this one about global capitalism.

Initially, when I started this work, I spoke with as many Jewish folks as I could find and asked, “is this prayer antisemitic?” I thought the answers would be a universal yes. However, I got answers all over the board - yes, no, and everything in between. It turns out, there is a wide diversity of thought among Jews on this. Of course - like any community, people disagree over the things that they should atone for collectively.

Separation of Church and State

I reached out to New Trier Administration for context and background on this story (and another story on the “Empathy Gap”). I have posted the first part of their response in full below. I reached out to Ms. Wallace for this story and received no reply.

First, I want to correct that Ms. Wallace did not send the prayer you reference itself to our staff members. She linked to resource materials for a 30-day anti-racism challenge created in August 2020 by the Jewish Emergent Network, a network of Jewish groups active in anti-racism efforts. The resources on the website are extensive and include the prayer, which was written amid the racial justice protests of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. Her intent was not to direct the prayer specifically to staff members, but rather to share the anti-racism challenge as a resource relevant to work she had been invited to do with New Trier staff in February 2020. The timing of the email was a few days after the Network launched its challenge. As a Black Jewish woman herself, Ms. Wallace was moved by the ideas of the challenge and wanted to share it.  

Her involvement with this topic came after the District published descriptions of its staff-led professional development offerings in early 2020. As you are aware, the description of the “Empathy Gap” discussion, which was subsequently canceled, caused several of our staff members to rightfully be hurt and confused. This offering had not been adequately reviewed by the administration. Several Jewish staff members objected to the presentation as described, and administrators agreed that the description painting Jewish Americans with a broad brush regarding their involvement in racial justice work did not uphold the District’s goals toward equity and belonging. As a result, the offering was canceled, but the hurt among staff members remained. To try to reach some understanding, the District held listening sessions and invited Ms. Wallace to help in reaching a restorative resolution among colleagues. These meetings took place in February 2020, and the closure of schools in March 2020 due to the pandemic overshadowed these efforts soon after.

When the Jewish Emergent Network launched its anti-racism challenge in August 2020, Ms. Wallace thought of the work she had been doing with New Trier prior to the pandemic and sent it as a resource to the staff who had been involved. 

I want to address the District’s response because it raises some very important questions about separation of church and state.

First, they are correct — the email does link to a “Racial Equity Challenge” instead of a prayer directly, but step 1 of the challenge is to read the prayer! If I sent a link to a “Tom’s Exciting Challenge” and step 1 was to read Bible verses, it’s fair to say that I’m sending you Bible verses.

Second, it’s absolutely irrelevant whether Ms. Wallace is Jewish or not. If a Christian consultant was sending an email with links to Bible verses to only Christian employees I think almost everyone would think that is inappropriate.⁵

Third, the idea that it was connected to the launch of the Jewish Emergent Network is proselytizing a specific vision of Judaism. Again, if I launched “Tom’s Exciting Catholic Network” and as a paid consultant, emailed it to all the Christian employees - the non-Catholic Christians would be upset. The Jewish staff here has an entire range of views including secular!

Lastly, it is important to note that this isn’t an email from a random community member⁶ - as the New Trier Admin noted themselves, this email was in response to work done as a paid consultant and facilitator. So the District administration essentially paid a consultant to advocate a specific vision of religion but only to the Jewish staff. I hope people can agree that this is both weird and inappropriate.

This is the whole reason we (as Americans) value the separation of church and state. Anyone who has studied the enlightenment and the founders will tell you that they were aware of the consequences of the state settling religious disagreements - there were hundreds of years of Civil Wars following the Reformation in Europe. The state should not be in the position of advocating or proselytizing any vision of any religion. This is especially true in our current era of divisiveness, as some Christians are attempting and succeeding at accomplishing this nationally.

Here in Evanston, we had a big stir when the District 65 leadership had Pastor Michael Nabors read a prayer to teachers at an event in 2023. District 65 apologized for this, Rev. Nabors apologized, and I think New Trier should do the same here.

1. Bidding requirements can be ignored for “contracts for the services of individuals possessing a high degree of professional skill where the ability or fitness of the individual plays an important part;” - This is an abused part of the IL school code that you can claim for pretty much everything.

2. My understanding is that in some Districts, particularly District 65, this is now required training for new teachers.

3. As a non-Jew, I am a little bit ahead of my skis here, so please comment if I get anything wrong. I seek to be respectful and truthful on this.

4. I’m still not sure we’ve come to terms with our responsibility in the Crusades, a millennia ago!

5. I think this is very weird that they shared with this me. I debated removing this because it makes me uncomfortable sharing someone else’s religion without their consent but I also promised the District I would post their reply in full. I reached out to Ms. Wallace for comment and received no reply.

6. If it was from a random community member, a student, or even a non-administrative staff member I believe this would be completely protected political speech. This is coming from a consultant acting on behalf of administrators (ie, the state), which is different.