On September 20th, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass published a column criticizing the ACLU of Illinois’ colleagues in Rhode Island for their actions regarding a public school district’s policies about gender-segregated events. Kass lamented what he labeled as a “lack of common” sense on the part of the ACLU in forcing the school district to end a father-daughter dance, known as Me and My Guy Dinner Dance. Kass suggests that such dances are “time-honored” traditions that should be maintained. He even found someone on the sidewalk outside Tribune Tower to agree with him.
Problem is, Kass got some facts wrong in his column. Well, a lot of facts wrong. For one thing, he suggests that the event was a “time-honored” tradition. Truth is, this was a first-year event. And, he suggests the ACLU threatened the school district with litigation, though if you look at the correspondence (pdf), one can easily see that this was not the case.
A few days ago, we wrote back to Kass. The text appears below. Surprisingly, he has not yet responded.
Dear John,
Your column of September 20, attacking my colleagues at the ACLU of Rhode Island, necessitates a response. Not for the reason you may think. That you, and others you reflect in your column, are not concerned with the damaging impact of gender stereotyping and segregation is not the problem. You are entitled to your opinion. You are not, however, entitled to your own set of facts. In defending your worldview on this issue, you elected to misrepresent and misstate a number of facts. That is not fair and it undermines public discussion on a critically important issue.
For the record, you begin the column by asserting that the ACLU of Rhode Island had “attacked” what you describe as a “time-honored American ritual.” My colleagues in Rhode Island sent a letter, raising concerns about public school events that excluded some students and possibly isolated others – namely, young women who did not have an active father in their life. That is hardly an attack. As for the “time honored” assertion, perhaps we – you and I – simply have divergent definitions of the phrase “time-honored.” In the Cranston public school district where this matter arose, the school district had not promoted single-gender events in many years – indeed, over the past several years; dances such as this were open to all students regardless of gender. (You must have seen this in the letter that the ACLU of Rhode Island sent to the Superintendent.) The “Me and My Guy Dinner Dance” was a new event that was just only created in 2012. That is why this controversy arose – not because of an attack by the ACLU.
You also suggest that the single-gender events were “banned” because ACLU lawyers were “breathing upon” school officials. Nice turn of a phrase. But, alas, wrong. When the ACLU contacted the school district in May of this year, they made very, very clear that “we do not expect anything to be done before that event (the dance) takes place.” Given your years of covering Chicago and Illinois politics, you must recognize the sort of overt, overwhelming threat contained in a letter that promises absolutely no action.In the end, school officials recognized that, as the ACLU suggested, these sort of exclusionary, single-gender events violate Rhode Island law and fail to fulfill the school’s educational mission. For that reason, without fuss, and quite amicably, the school made a judgment to return in future years to the previous “time-honored” tradition of more inclusive events.
I understand that you got drawn in by a political candidate’s use of this non-controversy to portray the ACLU as heartless and “anti-Dad.” But I am confused. Your columns regularly remind me that government should not and must not be relied upon for direction and structure in our lives. So why does Mr. Gately in Rhode Island and the father that you consulted need a government agency (the school) to organize an event for his daughter and him to spend time together. If your colleague wants to dress up and take his daughter for a nice meal and dancing – isn’t he able to do that without government involvement? And, isn’t a father able to spend time with his daughter in a fashion that does not require someone else being excluded? It is always interesting to see when folks who trumpet small government want government involved in their own family decisions.
You owe your readers a restatement of these “facts” in this matter. I think if you were Ricky Nelson and wrote this column in that old television show, Ozzie would have told you that accuracy and forthrightness were virtues that are timeless. That is a “time-honored American tradition” we seem to ignore in distractions such as this.
Edwin C. Yohnka
Director of Communications and Public Policy, ACLU of Illinois