Page A2, THE INTERIOR JOURNAL, February 2, 2012
IJ EDITORIAL
Gov. chooses to
shoot the messenger
By Michael Broihier
In an op-ed you will find
below, Governor Steve
Beshear seeks to distract taxpayers from real problems
within the Cabinet for
Family and Human Services
that has allowed dozens of
children placed in the state’s
foster care and adoption system to be abused, injured
and sometimes killed.
Beshear breaks out a raft
of logical fallacies in a notso-subtle attempt to convince concerned grannies
and dutiful school teachers
and counselors that a recent
decision forcing the cabinet
to open its records when a
child is seriously injured or
killed will expose them to
retaliation by “unstable and
volatile” abusers.
The facts are simple.
While in the care of the state,
too many children are being
physically, mentally and/or
sexually abused, assaulted
and sometimes killed and the
cabinet has failed in its oversight role to prevent this
from happening.
You would not even know
that this was going on if it
had not been for yeomen
work
of
newspaper
reporters, and Beshear’s
transparent attempt to shift
the blame to those who’ve
served the watchdog role
that his administration has
failed to fulfill is insulting to
you and unbecoming of him.
Gov. Beshear has unwisely chosen to ignore what
Mark Twain is widely credited with saying, “Never pick
a fight with someone who
buys ink by the barrel.” The
failures of the cabinet are
inexcusable
and
Gov.
Beshear’s response to the
reporting
inexplicable.
Before he gets sucked down
the drainpipe of history he
needs reform the state’s
childcare
system
and
embrace Kentucky Sunshine
Laws that ensure that the
people, through the press,
have unfettered access to
paperwork that records the
state’s business, good or bad.
Other than that, I have no
strong opinions.
Beshear blames newspapers for state’s troubled
foster/adoption care system
Gov. Steve Beshear
You teach in a small community and suspect a student
is being abused. You want to
report it, but you fear retaliation.
Can you come forward
without the newspaper naming you as the accuser?
Or maybe you’re a grandmother. You worry about the
man your daughter is living
with, in fact you’re afraid of
him. But you love your
grandchildren, and you think
they’re being neglected.
Will you be able to report
your suspicion without alerting your daughter’s volatile
and unstable boyfriend and
jeopardizing your own safety?
The answer to both scenarios, unfortunately, is
“no.”
If a case of suspected child
abuse and/or neglect later
results in death or serious
injury, and you reported it,
your name and your concerns likely will be released
to anybody who asks,
whether that’s a TV reporter,
a blogger or even the
accused. That’s one of the
real-life consequences of a
new judicial ruling related to
state records on investigations of child abuse and neglect.
The ruling, issued Jan. 19
in Franklin Circuit Court,
stems from litigation involving Kentucky newspapers’
attempts to access records
involving cases that resulted
in a child’s death or serious
injury.
An attorney for the newspapers has argued that no
information
whatsoever
should be kept confidential,
and that the public should
have unfettered access to
these records.
The judge disagreed. He
said the Cabinet for Health
and Family Services can
black out certain information, such as names of children seriously injured in
cases of abuse; Social
Security numbers and other
financial information; the
names of other children in
the family who weren’t
involved; and the names of
private citizens who report
abuse - but the names of relatives, police officers and
LETTERS POLICY
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school officials who report
abuse will be made public.
But we don’t think the
judge’s ruling was protective
enough, and so the Cabinet
recently filed notice that it
would appeal.
Newspapers will criticize
the state for this decision.
After all, they get to write
the headlines. To date, the
Cabinet has been accused
of “operating under a veil
of secrecy” in a supposed
attempt
to
protect
inept workers and a poorly
designed system.
But this is not about
shielding the system from
scrutiny. We understand the
need to be more transparent
than in years past - in fact, I
ordered such a paradigm
shift in the Cabinet’s treatment of child abuse records
as early as last fall.
We are not arguing for
the right to camouflage the
actions of the Cabinet or its
workers. That information
is already being provided
and we will continue to do
s
o
.
But increased openness has
to be implemented in a
consistent and thoughtful
way that holds the best
interests of the child as its
paramount priority. That is
our top and only concern.
There are very real consequences - sometimes
unintended - to eliminating
confidentiality.
As I described earlier,
lack of protection for those
reporting abuse or neglect
could have a silencing
effect on those who would
bring these conditions to
authorities.
But there are other consequences. For example
-Police and prosecutors
routinely share information
with the Cabinet to help it
determine whether children
need to be removed from a
home for their safety. That
information might include
witness interviews, forensic evidence, autopsy
results and statements by
a
n
accused immediately following a tragic event.
The Court’s ruling does not
exempt that information
from disclosure -even if the
case
is
ongoing.
Consequently, prosecutors
THE
INTERIOR
JOURNAL
Since 1860
will likely begin withholding that information rather
than risk jeopardizing their
ability to pursue criminal
charges. As a result, the
Cabinet will lack crucial
information it needs to
decide whether to intervene
to protect children.
-The ruling also doesn’t
shield from disclosure
information related to voluntary or involuntary termination of parental rights,
and to a subsequent adoption. As a result, a parent
who
previously
lost
custody of a child via court
order will be able to track
down the child and the
family who adopted that
child. The result could
potentially be tragic. And it
certainly will stymie the
Cabinet’s ability to find
people to adopt abused or
neglected children.
-The court ruling does
not exempt from disclosure
the names of parents,
guardians or custodial parties found by the Cabinet to
have abused or neglected a
child but later exonerated
once a hearing on the
charges was held.
Publicizing their names
before their cases are fully
heard is a violation of due
process required by federal
law, and it directly harms
them and their families.
The Cabinet must make
decisions in a short timeframe, and often errs on the
side of caution. Parents or
others accused should have
the right to defend themselves before they’re punished. Such consequences
are indicative of the complex social, emotional and
legal issues that surround
cases of child abuse and
neglect. The ability of
social workers and others
to gather information has a
direct impact on their ability to make critical decisions regarding the safety
of vulnerable children and
their families.
In the aftermath of my
directive requiring more
transparency, I have asked
the General Assembly to
give these issues a public
airing. The legislature
should amend state law in a
way that ensures our child
welfare system is effective
and eliminates the ambiguities that led to recent court
rulings.
The
General
Assembly should set the
policy on this issue, not the
courts.
In the meantime, however, the Cabinet, its attorneys and I will continue to
battle in court in the best
interests of our children regardless of what criticism
comes our way.
In Rhode Island, a student’s lesson
in religious freedom
By Charles C. Haynes
At the tender age of 16,
Jessica Ahlquist has already
endured more verbal abuse
than most people experience
in a lifetime.
A high school student in
Cranston, R.I., Jessica has
been taunted and threatened
at school, targeted by an
online hate campaign, and
called “an evil little thing”
by a state representative on
the radio.
Her crime? She asked
school officials to remove a
“school prayer” banner from
the auditorium of Cranston
West
High
School.
Addressed to “Our Heavenly
Father,” the prayer banner
was presented to the school
by the class of 1963 and has
been affixed to the wall as a
mural ever since.
At the School Committee
hearing to consider the issue,
public outrage turned the
meeting into a religious
revival. Angry citizens lined
up to proclaim their allegiance to God, quote the
Bible, and condemn Jessica
to hell.
“If you take the banner
down,” one woman testified,
“you are spitting in the face
of God.” Another banner
supporter warned: “You
can’t vote to take this down
and say that you’re standing
with God.”
After
the
School
Committee bowed to public
pressure and voted to keep
the banner, Jessica’s father
(supported by the American
Civil Liberties Union) filed
suit on her behalf.
On Jan. 11, U.S. District
Judge Ronald Lagueux ruled
in Jessica’s favor and
ordered the banner removed.
It was an easy case. For more
than 60 years, the U.S.
Supreme Court has repeatedly held that promotion of
religion by public school
officials violates the establishment
clause
of
the First Amendment.
“When focused on the
Prayer Mural,” wrote the
judge, “the activities and
agenda of the Cranston
School Committee became
excessively entangled with
religion,
exposing
the
Committee to a situation
where a loud and passionate
majority encouraged it to
vote to override the constitutional rights of a minority.”
Undeterred, supporters of
the prayer banner are holding a “prayer rally” this
week to urge the School
Committee to keep fighting.
Jessica may be in the
minority in Cranston, but
she’s in good company as the
latest in a long line of Rhode
Island dissenters – beginning
with the state’s founder,
Roger Williams.
Williams, who was himself verbally attacked, was
banished
from
Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1635 for objecting to the
entanglement of religion and
government
that,
he
believed, corrupted both.
He founded Rhode Island
as the first government in
history with no established
religion and a commitment
to protect liberty of conscience for every person. As
a deeply religious Christian
minister, Williams vowed to
put an end to centuries of
oppression and coercion by
erecting what he called “a
wall or hedge of separation”
between the “Garden of the
Church and the Wilderness
of the World.”
Rhode Island was to be a
“haven for the cause of
conscience” where government stayed out of religion
and all people (including
Quakers, Catholics and
others persecuted in surrounding colonies) would
be free to choose in matters
of faith.
If he were alive today,
there’s little doubt that
Roger Williams would be
solidly in Jessica’s corner.
He would view the “school
prayer” banner as blasphemous state appropriation of
religion. However big or
small the issue, Williams
believed that any state
entanglement with religion
violates conscience, divides
society, and (most important for him) offends God.
Of course, keeping government neutral toward
religion did not mean for
Williams then, and does not
mean now, keeping religion
out of public life. He would
applaud that Cranston students are free to pray alone
or in groups (as long as
they don’t disrupt school).
Moreover, under current
law, students may bring
their scriptures to school,
share their faith with classmates and form religious
clubs.
You might think it would
be easy to stand up for religious freedom in the birthplace of religious freedom
– but apparently it isn’t. In
Judge Lagueux’s words,
Jessica Ahlquist “is clearly
an articulate and courageous young woman, who
took a brave stand, particularly in light of the hostile
response she has received
from her community.”
Thanks to Jessica, the
spirit of Roger Williams –
America’s first great dissenter – is alive and well in
Rhode Island.
Charles C. Haynes is
director of the Religious
Freedom Education Project
at the Newseum.
Staff
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