An Amen for Albany | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary

An Amen for Albany | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "New York City had long leaned heavily on institutions affiliated with major religious groups to provide foster placements for 'their' kids — Catholic agencies making arrangements for Catholic kids and so forth. Lawyers from the ACLU sued, saying this perpetuated religious discrimination. In particular, they argued, it was unfair that Catholic and Jewish kids got the assistance of relatively strong agencies backed by long histories of community philanthropy and volunteering, while other kids, notably black Protestants, were left with whatever foster arrangements the city could cobble together.

In a settlement, the city agreed to scrap the system and cut back religious matching in favor of something more like a first-come-first-served method of assignment, turning the agencies into something closer to interchangeable outposts of a single foster system. Problem solved? No. Outcomes went from unacceptable to even worse as the new rules demoralized and drove away volunteers at the high-performing religious agencies without turning around the others."