Bishop Backs School Boycott Over Sex Clinic

Roman Catholic Bishop Leo T. Maher has thrown the church’s support behind a planned one-day boycott of city high schools to protest a proposed school-based health clinic that would distribute contraceptives to students.

However, principals in schools across San Diego warned their students Friday that absences for the boycott, planned for Tuesday, would be considered “unexcused,” even if parents approve them.

Maher wrote a letter endorsing the plan of parents in a Mira Mesa parish to keep students home to show opposition to the proposed clinic, which would provide physical examinations, immunizations and laboratory tests, as well as contraceptives and pregnancy counseling for students. The bishop’s letter, dated May 19, will be read or distributed in Catholic churches in the diocese on Sunday.

“If parents desire to protest by keeping their children home that day, we also support this means of awakening the consciences of the members of the board (of education),” Maher wrote.

Prayer Day

Maher called for “a day of prayer and reflection” Tuesday, when “young and old, especially parents,” should write letters to the five school board members describing their “strong opposition to this evil.”

He also asked his parishioners to support “all God-fearing parents” who are fighting the clinics, which would “promote promiscuity among our teen-agers” and destroy “our family values and traditions.”

Despite his endorsement, Maher predicted Friday that “I don’t think it will be a very large group” boycotting, because of the short time between the announcement of the boycott and the target date.

The San Diego Unified School District has countered with a memo from Bertha Pendleton, special assistant to the superintendent, to all district principals asking them to tell students that absences to protest the clinic “will be classified as unexcused.”

School officials also told the principals to compare the number of absences on Tuesday with the number on the previous Tuesday and Wednesday.

A 29-member task force currently is studying the district’s proposal for a comprehensive health clinic and is scheduled to report to the school board July 1.

Hurt Students

School board President Susan Davis said a boycott is “premature,” because the task force has not yet offered any recommendation to the trustees. She suggested that the boycott would only cost the school system state reimbursement money and hurt students.

“I really don’t see that as effective in terms of what (Maher) is trying to accomplish,” Davis said. “We haven’t even started to look at it in any kind of depth.”