Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's a unique church/state case: a New York school principal used school funds for a Santeria ceremony to rid the school of evil spirits:
The principal charged with hosting a Santeria ceremony in her SoHo high school has agreed to resign her $133,000-a-year post, according to a report released yesterday.Maritza Tamayo leaves the Unity Center for Urban Technologies, at 121 Sixth Ave., after owning up to wrangling $900 from an assistant principal to fund the 2006 ritual, the city's Conflicts of Interest Board said.
The August report describes the chicken-blood and white-robe affair as meant to "cleanse" the building of negative energy. No students were in the school.
Doesn't strike me as any more absurd than the Florida principal who "anointed" students' desks with oil so they'd do better on a test. Result seems to be different though.
Comments
Makes the essay on Fung Shuei (sp?) I had to read to illustrate a reading instruction strategy pale by comparison.
Posted by: BaldApe | December 9, 2007 11:03 AM
They did this in SoHo? I would have thought that would be more of a Queens thing.
Posted by: Moopheus | December 9, 2007 11:09 AM
The article really doesn't explain why the principal was fired. Was it over the $900 discrepancy? Inappropriate behavior? Angering the fundies?
The ritual might be a bit silly, but it seems perfectly harmless. Unlike the anointing oil case, she wasn't trying to force her beliefs on the students. The principal should have just received a fine. The firing was way too harsh.
Posted by: Brandon | December 9, 2007 11:45 AM
If she spent her own money, did it on her own time and in no way tried to force her religious beliefs on her students, then, yes, it would be harsh to fire her. But she used taxpayer money. That's government endorsement of religion.
Posted by: Ruth Etters | December 9, 2007 1:15 PM
"Result seems to be different though."
The evil spirits actually went away?
Posted by: PhysioProf | December 9, 2007 6:38 PM
Funny. Funny, funny, funny. Ha ha, laugh out loud funny.
Not Santeria's first brush with the First Amendment. See Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, Florida. (Best Supreme Court case title ever!)
Except in this case the Santerians are wrong. As with the many fundie principals, I'm forced to ask how people so stupid get to be principles. But then, as a college prof I see on a regular basis that the teacher ed students are not the best and the brightest.
Still, funny. All those folks demanding prayer in the public schools just weren't expecting so much chicken blood, were they?
Posted by: James Hanley | December 9, 2007 9:34 PM
Dang-I would have done that for half the fee charged;-)
Posted by: Rev. AJB | December 10, 2007 12:01 AM
If you have $900, I've got a spare chicken I can send you. It's a little beat up, though, since I brought it home from a New Warriors Training Adventure.
Posted by: Bill Ware | December 10, 2007 1:55 PM
I'm going home to take a nice long shower where I can loofah my brain after reading that link...
Posted by: Rev. AJB | December 10, 2007 2:43 PM