Legal Framework

State governments and Commonwealth have enacted legislation that has preserved the promotion of an inclusive and more tolerant society. In the recent decades, more work is done for such promotion.

Introduction

All educational authorities are regulated by Anti-discrimination legislation that has been enacted by state governments and Commonwealth. It is found that these laws are not equally implemented in private and public schools. Extensive exemptions are provided to the private schools. The private schools are found to be engaged more in discriminatory practices while such practices are strictly prohibited in public schools and other sectors. All the public schools have to follow the anti-discriminatory legislation while all the private schools have been given the authority to choose whether they want to practice discriminatory behavior. (Liptak, 2004)

The treatment of private and public schools under anti-discrimination laws is different. It means that more rights are given to contract workers, employees and students in the public schools as compared to the rights given to the contract workers, employees and students in the private schools. Exemptions have been established for some areas of discrimination. A de facto bias has been created that makes the grounds of pregnancy and sexuality more lawful for private schools racial discrimination. (Essex, 2001)

The Convention Against Discrimination in Education, the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination have set up some goals for schooling that should be achieved in the Twenty-first Century.

According to the goals, all the students should be free from any kind of bias whether it is based on language, culture and ethnicity, sex, disability, religion or differences of geographic location or socio-economic background. These goals will serve as a foundation and all the private and public schools will have to enact according to these goals. These goals include that all the students have the right to learn in a safe and supportive environment that is free from any discrimination, all the students have the right to be treated with dignity and fairness, and all the students should treat the other students with the same dignity and fairness. (Liptak, 2004)

Legal Framework for Private and Public Schools

The legal framework for private and public schools include Racial Discrimination Act , Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission Act , Sex Discrimination Act, and Disability Discrimination Act .

Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission Act

This act was established to provide a framework that will hear and conciliate the complaints related to unlawful discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act, Racial Discrimination Act and Disability Discrimination Act. This commission is also responsible for the inquiry of any discriminatory act. The definition of discrimination for these purposes includes any exclusion, distinction or preference that has been made on the basis of sex, color, race, religion, age, disability, sexual preference, political opinion and social origin. Two exemptions are found. (Neil, 2002)

First, any exclusion, distinction or preference is not included in this act that is related to a particular job. Second, any exclusion, distinction or preference is not included in this act that is related to the employment of a person in such institution that is associated with a particular belief, doctrine or teaching of a particular religion. If the teaching of a particular religion is against the homosexual behavior then the employment of a person that is openly engaged in homosexual activities could be refused and here, discrimination will be constituted under the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission Act. (Neil, 2002)

The Disability Discrimination Act

Public and private schools are treated equally on the ground of this act. According to this act, no one has the right to discriminate another on the basis of discrimination. Exemptions are found for public and private schools. (Peace, 1999)

The Racial Discrimination Act

According to this act, no one has the right to discriminate other on the basis of race. No exemptions are found for public and private schools. (Zall, 2000)

The Sex Discrimination Act

According to this act, no one has the right to discriminate others on the basis of sex, pregnancy, marital status or potential pregnancy that is related to contract work, employment and the provision of education. So, on the basis of this act, all the students have the right to get admission and to access the benefits provided by the school. The institutions don't have the right to expel a student or to subject students to any other detriment on the basis of sex. The institutions can not refuse any employment or dismiss the teachers of staff on the basis of marital status, sex, pregnancy or potential pregnancy. A number of exemptions are found in this act in the administration of public and private schools. The religious private schools are exempted from this legislation. (Javaid, 2002)

Discrimination is More Prevalent in Private Schools

Some of the private and public schools are found to try hard to get rid of negative discrimination and their overall performance is satisfactory while other public and private schools are found to perform poorly. Although discrimination against students is found in both the private and public schools, discrimination is practiced in private schools in such ways that are totally unlawful in public schools. If some discrimination occurs in public schools, the affected can seek for some legal help. As a result, specific policies are developed by the educational authorities make it sure that the legal obligations are complied. Where as private schools are exempted in some cases from anti-discriminatory provisions of the legislation. So, the educational authorities of private schools don't bother to develop specific policies to assure that legal obligations are complied. (Hardy, 2004)

Pregnancy

It is found that most of the young women who become pregnant during their studies in schools live in areas that are low-socioeconomic. .70 % of the young women attending a public school become pregnant. There are hundreds of potential pregnant young women each year while attending a private school. Public schools have developed specific policies that deal with the continuing education of pregnant students. So, in public schools, pregnant and parenting students are allowed to continue their education while in private schools, pregnant and parenting students are encouraged to leave the school because the educational authorities fear that their school will have a bad image if pregnant students will continue to come to school. (Zall, 2000)

Sexuality

Although sexual abuse is common in both private and public schools, it is more prevalent in private schools as most of the private schools are single sex, that is, male-only and female-only schools. This gives rise to homosexuality and thus gays and lesbians are evolved. Private schools pressurize such students to leave the school. (Javaid, 2002)

Discrimination in Religious Schools

Discrimination is strong practiced in the religious schools on the ground of sex, sexual preference, parental status, age, disability, marital status, and industrial activity, status as a career, physical features, pregnancy, religion, race and political beliefs. These acts are practiced if they are relevant to the religious beliefs or principles on which a particular school is established. The educational authorities can expel any employee on the religious ground if the employee is found involved in performing its religious practice during working hours. (Mardesich, 2001)

Private Schools: Fear from Vouchers

Conservatives are mostly united in support of ``school choice'' - giving parents vouchers to be spent at private schools. The reasons are obvious: public schools have been a mess for decades, and private schools can be expensive. Yet vouchers could present a danger. If private schools accept publicly funded students, it will invite more government intrusion into private education. When Milton Friedman first proposed school vouchers in Capitalism and Freedom (1962), he assured us that ``the role of the government would be limited to ensuring that the [private] schools met certain minimum standards.'' (Andrews, 2002)

Since then, however, the government's reach into education has become longer, its social-engineering agenda more ambitious, and its cultural model further removed from religious tradition. No incident better illustrates this than the controversy in District 24 in Queens, New York, whose board refused to approve a curriculum that has first-graders being taught the wonders of gay and lesbian marriage. The New York Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez suspended the school board for their action. His decision was wrong, of course, but few deny the government's right to regulate public-school curriculums. Do we want the same people involved in private schools? (Bauman, 2002)

No one doubts that school vouchers would bring private schools under federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws to a greater extent than is now the case. Some choice advocates have considered this a virtue. Contrary to critics' claims, vouchers will not result in racially segregated outcomes. In fact vouchers would encourage a racial commingling that does not occur in our present neighborhood-based public schools. Most choice plans include non-discrimination clauses. But ``non-discrimination'' does not mean what it appears to mean. Far from ensuring fairness, these laws enable the exercise of arbitrary state power. To the extent that private-school standards produce disparities that fall along racial lines, the schools would face pressure to change those standards. Indeed, any deviation from statistical equality becomes ipso facto evidence of the denial of a right, alias `discrimination. (Belfield & Levin, 2002)

Religious high schools that accept vouchers may not immediately be forced to allow gay groups on campus. But if recent political trends continue, it is not absurd to expect such things in the future. Once private schools become semi-public through vouchers, any number of controls that now apply to business could come into effect, as documented in Forbidden Grounds, Richard Epstein's attack on anti-discrimination law. Certainly private schools would come under regulations like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which, in today's legal environment, will mandate de facto quotas for even the mentally retarded. (Gill, 2001) The most famous example of vouchers is Wisconsin's program, with legislator Polly Williams as its most public advocate. Private schools participating in the program must sign a ``Notice of Intent to Participate'' which forces them to abide by ``all federal and state guarantees protecting the rights and liberties of individuals including freedom of religion, expression, association, unreasonable search and seizure, equal protection, and due process.'' Broadly interpreted, this could bring a self-governing private school under complete legislative control. Voucher programs can be written so as to ``construct a choice system that does not invite government intrusion into private schooling.'' (Howell & Peterson, 2002)

Yet even if initial legislation poses no dangers, it can always be amended at a later date, or altered by a judge. Politicians might cite the precedent of housing vouchers. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's ``certificate program is highly intrusive. It strictly regulates who may rent units from private owners, the monthly rent, the amount of assistance, the terms of contracts,'' and ``types of housing'' involved. Federal regulations even demand ``good cause'' for lease termination. In 1982, three Supreme Court decisions argued that when there is a close financial nexus between the state and the private action, the private party can be regulated as if it were a state agency. ``In effect,'' voucher programs might force private schools to ``become an arm of the state.'' (Levin & Driver, 1997)

The United States would not be alone in the publicization of private schools. Programs in Western Europe establish the rule that the greater the amount of the voucher, the greater the regulation. High-subsidy schools must obey regulations concerning curriculum, organization, functions, facilities, equal access for all groups, teacher salaries, and hours of instruction, class size, conditions of work, and more. The proof is documented in Choice of Schools in Six Nations by Charles L. Glenn, a treatise published, ironically, by the Department of Education to support the case for vouchers. (Miron & Nelson, 2002)

Conservatives have argued for a linkage between funding and control in other areas. When the National Endowment for the Arts placed restrictions on the ``artists'' it funded, conservatives rightly said, If freedom of expression is what you want, don't take public money. The same was true of the ``gag rule'' that prevented publicly funded clinics from discussing abortion with pregnant women. Conservatives rightly pointed out that free speech is not absolute when other people's money is being used. The party picking up the tab tells the piper what tune to play. Private schools do not have to take vouchers, of course. But by refusing them, a school subjects itself to unfair competition from subsidized schools. When faced with the option of shutting their doors versus watering down the curriculum and taking down religious symbols, private schools will joint the program. (Moe, 2001)

Yet even if all these objections were met, and school choice eventually led to budgetary savings, it would hardly justify giving up the independence of private schools, a sector in which merit and excellence still matter. Like successful businesses, private schools do well precisely because they are funded with private money and are managed independently of politics. Instead of making public schools more like private schools, which should be the goal, vouchers may well do the reverse.