Liberty Christian in VHSL is Inappropriate
Editor,
Your March 14, 2024 Editorial, Liberty Christian’s Discriminations was spot-on! LCA’s Mission Statement is indeed blatantly discriminatory and, moreover, completely at odds with language in Virginia’s Human Rights Act (1987), which states “it is the policy of the Commonwealth to:
- Safeguard all individuals within the Commonwealth from unlawful discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, or disability in places of public accommodation, including educational institutions and in real estate transactions;
- Safeguard all individuals within the Commonwealth from unlawful discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or military status.”
So, what to do about this situation? Well, for starters, there’s the over-arching question: how can a private school with a clearly discriminatory mission statement be permitted to play in a public school tournament? Subsumed under this are a series of key questions, including: on what grounds did VHSL members make their decision to vote to admit LCA in 2015? Was LCA’s mission statement in 2015 the same as it is in 2024? If not, how and in what ways did it change? When did VHSL become aware of the discriminatory language in LCA’s current Mission Statement? What has been VHSL’s response and how does VHSL reconcile the contradictions between LCA’s current Mission Statement language and provisions of Virginia’s Human Rights Act? Lastly, are VHSL member schools aware of reports that as a private school LCA has recruited athletes, in apparent violation of VHSL rules and regulations? Has VHSL investigated these reports and, if so, what has been found and what action, if any, has been taken?
In anticipation of further efforts to respond to this situation, answers to these questions should be pursued… and I, for one, intend to do so.
Hal Lippman
Where is Affordable Housing in F.C.?
Editor,
In last week’s paper you wrote Don Beyer “secures $850,000 for F.C. Affordable Housing.” I checked local home prices and the cheapest condo for sale in Falls Church is currently listed at $629,000, and the second cheapest $849,000. Where are the “starter homes”? Where are the working families who work here and provide services in Falls Church supposed to live? I don’t think that federal funding is going to go very far when our existing housing supply has become this expensive. Like many regions in the country, we are clearly in a housing affordability crisis which can’t be solved by subsidizing demand. We can only solve it by increasing the supply of homes and working diligently to meet the needs in our community. The average person can no longer afford to buy the average home, exacerbating the wealth and power inequality. Something big has to change because our current trajectory is destroying the fabric of our society, whether the wealthy landowners of Falls Church realize it or not. As the Falls Church City Council gets ready to kickoff the FY25 budget process I hope more residents join in making their concerns on our current housing policies heard and the Council takes seriously the power they have to address the current crisis.
-Joseph Schiarizzi
Correction: last week’s letter to the editor regarding the electoral college was incorrectly attributed to the incorrect author. The letter was written by Joyce Migdall.
