The Catholic League is seeking the maximum penalty against anti-Catholic teachers at Sharon High School in Massachusetts for their participation in an anti-Catholic event. At the high school’s Halloween party, two male students dressed as pregnant nuns and another dressed as the priest impregnator. They were awarded first prize by a faculty panel: the offending students received the most comical costume award.
Catholic League president William Donohue commented as follows:
“The Jewish community of Sharon prides itself on tolerance. Indeed, school officials have admitted that they were on the lookout this year for any anti-Muslim costume at the Halloween party. I guess anti-Catholicism is not on their radar screen. We envy the Muslims.
“Sharon school officials are now prepared to issue an apology to Catholics and are currently taking steps to see to it that this doesn’t happen again. This is a necessary but insufficient response. The offending teachers must be disciplined. We are formally requesting Dr. Claire Jackson, the school superintendent, to seek the maximum penalty against these faculty members. Section 26.07, part 2, of the Massachusetts Department of Education regulations says quite clearly that ‘harassment or discrimination’ based on religion must be prevented and that ‘all public schools shall respond promptly to such discrimination or harassment when they have knowledge of its occurrence.’ Yet nearly a month and a half has passed and nothing has been done to discipline either the offending students or the offending teachers.
“The Catholic League is glad that the ADL has been asked to address the issue of intolerance at Sharon High School. But because this was an exclusively anti-Catholic episode, we find it disconcerting that no effort has been made to contact the Catholic League. After all, if there were an anti-Semitic incident at Sharon, would they call the NAACP?”
