12 March 2007

First Freedom Project Boosts Effort To Protect Religious Liberty

Uses community outreach, education to counter religious discrimination

 

U.S. Attorney General Gonzales speaks to groups around the country on the importance of preserving religous freedom. (© AP Images)

By David Anthony Denny
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- The Department of Justice has launched a program to educate the public about laws protecting religious freedom and to build relationships with religious, civil rights and community leaders to ensure religious liberty concerns are brought to the department's attention.

A key person in this effort, called the First Freedom Project, is Eric Treene, the special counsel for religious discrimination in the department's Civil Rights Division.  He was hired in 2002 to coordinate all of Justice's efforts in combating religious discrimination and assure adequate attention was paid to this area.

In an interview with USINFO March 9, Treene said that even though the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is charged with protecting the right of individuals to be free from discrimination and hate crimes on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin, "there had not been any concerted, focused effort to look for and bring religious discrimination cases" to light.

According to statistics from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Treene said, religious discrimination complaints increased by 69 percent from the early 1990s to 2005, but race and sex discrimination cases stayed level or even went down during the same time period.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, only exacerbated the problem, according to Treene.  "After 9/11 we saw an increase in hate crimes against Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim, as well as a doubling of complaints of discrimination against Muslims in employment," he said.

Treene said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' meetings with groups and leaders of the Muslim-American community provided the impetus for the First Freedom Project.  The groups told Gonzales in January that they were pleased with the agency's record in this area, "but they wanted us to publicize it more generally" -- for the education of the person on the street and for non-Muslim audiences -- to emphasize the importance and universal nature of religious liberty and the importance of protecting the rights of all persons, including Muslim Americans.

"And that's what this initiative is all about," Treene said.  "It's not about protecting any individual's faith; it's not just about protecting Muslims.  It's about protecting religious liberty as a fundamental human right."

Gonzales announced the First Freedom Project in a speech to the Southern Baptist Convention on February 20. Baptists make up the largest U.S. Protestant denomination of Christianity.

In that speech Gonzales prefaced the project's announcement by saying that "One of our most cherished freedoms -- one we’ve sacrificed greatly to defend -- is our religious liberty.

"Nothing defines us more as a nation -- and differentiates us more from the extremists who are our enemies -- than our respect for religious freedom," Gonzales continued.  "Our great country was founded on these principles, and many of us today believe it continues to thrive because of, not despite, them," he added.

In addition to the public outreach effort, the attorney general said the First Freedom Project will strengthen protection of religious rights by creating an agencywide Religious Freedom Task Force to review policies and cases.  A public-education program will include regional training seminars, a dedicated Web site and literature on how to file a religious discrimination complaint.

Gonzales told the story of Nashala Hearn, a Muslim sixth-grader in Muskogee, Oklahoma, whose school told her that she could not wear a headscarf required by her faith.  Though other students were permitted to wear head coverings for nonreligious purposes, Gonzales said, Nashala was suspended twice for wearing her headscarf.

"That's a difficult position for a young student to be in, facing down her school principal and administration," said Gonzales.  "I don't know how I would have reacted when I was in sixth grade. But Nashala stood up for herself, and she had the Department of Justice to back her up."

In closing his speech, the attorney general returned to the story of Nashala, "who knew that she shouldn't have to choose between her education and her faith."

"If you know of any Nashalas out there," he said, "who find themselves facing down religious intolerance, and who think they're all alone in their fight ... you tell them to come talk to me."

For further information, see The First Freedom Project.

The full text of Attorney General Gonzales' prepared remarks is available on the Justice Department Web site.

For more information on U.S. policies, see International Religious Freedom.