Residents of a Staten Island, N.Y. community are mad after an anonymous complaint from one parent compelled the New York City Department of Education to cover up a cross on the side of a building the district is leasing from the local Catholic diocese.
The cross has been on the side of the former orphanage in Pleasant Plains since the 1950s, but workers from the education department showed up recently and covered it with a large maroon sign identifying the building as the “Home of the Panthers.”
The district says that rules governing the separation of church and state obligate it to remove any religious symbols from buildings leased with public tax dollars.
The New York City district has been leasing the building on the grounds of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin at Mount Loretto for more than 15 years from the Roman Catholic New York Archdiocese. It uses the building to house the Richmond High School for students with special needs. The cross has been on the side of the building throughout that time, but became more prominent recently when a large evergreen bush partially obscuring it was removed.
Shortly afterward, according to a report in the local Staten Island Advance, a single, anonymous complaint that a Christian cross was inappropriate on a public school building spurred the district to action.
An editorial in the Advance lamented the lengths that people will go in these “hyper politically correct” times to find offense with things that might make the slightest bit uncomfortable.
“What was accomplished by covering the cross over?,” the editorial wonders. “What exactly is better about the learning environment at the school? Other than bending a knee to one aggrieved parent, has this action improved things for the kids there?”
“It’s ridiculous.”
Comments posted to the paper’s website by local parents and residents expressed similar sentiment.
“My children attended pre-school at a local Jewish Community Center, paid for by the NYC Board of Education,” said one reader. “I am not Jewish, but was not offended by any sign of Judaism being visible. In fact, I would have been offended if they HAD to cover any symbol up.”
