The complaint alleges the bishop treated St. James’ differently from its sister church in Nassau County, who experienced similar hardships, resulting in a form of discrimination--disparate impact and disparate treatment.
What are disparate impact and disparate treatment? And how did the bishop’s actions result in both? Claim 1 of the Title IV complaint discusses this in detail. Below is a brief overview.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission explains each.
Both disparate impact and disparate treatment refer to discriminatory practices. Disparate impact is often referred to as unintentional discrimination, whereas disparate treatment is intentional. The terms adverse impact and adverse treatment are sometimes used as an alternative.
Disparate impact occurs when policies, practices, rules or other systems that appear to be neutral result in a disproportionate impact on a protected group. For example, testing all applicants and using results from that test that will unintentionally eliminate certain minority applicants disproportionately is disparate impact.
Disparate treatment is intentional employment discrimination. For example, testing a particular skill of only certain minority applicants is disparate treatment.
The complaint makes its claim under Title I.17.5 of the national canons.
No one shall be denied rights, status or access to an equal place in the life, worship, and governance of this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disabilities or age, except as otherwise specified by Canons.
Shortly after the bishop declared St. James’ a mission church, the members of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Nassau County discovered their rector had spent down a $1 million trust fund. Stories surfaced the Rector withheld financial records and concealed the church’s financial deterioration from the Vestry.
It was a similar story to St. James’. The vestry had learned the church had lost its $450,000 trust fund. Like Holy Trinity, the rector of St. James’ also withheld the financial records preventing the vestry from acting as stewards of the church and intervening to prevent a financial crisis.
The complaint state:
Both St. James’ and Holy Trinity were led by rectors who adopted an autocratic leadership style to the detriment of both churches. Both withheld vital information from their Vestry impeding the vestry’s ability to act as stewards for their respective congregation and church. Though Holy Trinity experienced a far greater financial loss than St. James (an estimated $550,000 more), Bishop Provenzano chose to declare St. James’ a mission church and not Holy Trinity.
The complaint asks why the bishop treated St. James differently.
The bishop’s actions disenfranchised St. James’ congregation from stewardship and governance of their church. In addition, the bishop transferred the church’s property to the diocese. As a result, the church attendance collapsed from about 80 to mid-20 and nearly all ministries were abolished by the priest-in-charge.
Using statistics provided by The Episcopal Church (TEC), it shows that St. James had a higher Average Sunday Attendance (ASA). It also shows the church experienced a continuous upward trend in attendance starting in 2013 and pledge/plate collection since 2011. For the same time period, the statistics show Holy Trinity in a downward trend for ASA and plate/pledge collections.
What else could explain the disparate treatment?
The complaint alleges the bishop acted out of bias towards a church with a predominately minority congregation. Whereas Holy Trinity at the time had a predominately Euro-centric congregation.
The complaint asks: Did Bishop Provenzano and Canon Betit arrive at St. James with preconceived biases? If not, how could Bishop Provenzano explain the disparate treatment between St. James’ and Holy Trinity?
The complaint uses census data for the communities of each church and the previous pastoral assignments of the bishop and the canon of the ordinary to make the claim.
Claim 1 in the complaint concludes with a series of questions.
Could their cultural framework have biased their decision to declare St. James’ a mission?
Does it explain the Bishop’s apathy towards the reconciliation process and the local Title IV complaint?
Does it explain the Bishop’s paternalism and placation towards a predominately minority church?
Does it explain why the bishop conceived this project for St. James’ without consulting with the local church and would announce it when he thinks it is appropriate (See Claim 3 of the complaint)? [The complaint claims the bishop is surreptitiously converting St. James’ into a learning and training center for the international Anglican community].