for
the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts
Feb.
23, 2001
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Political scientist studying effects of 'charitable choice' in state by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff
 aura
Jensen's research was hot almost before she got started. The assistant professor of Political Science was coming home from a kick-off conference with other researchers on their three-year Ford Foundation grant in late January when she discovered that their topic, "charitable choice," had hit the headlines, thanks to newly inaugurated President George W. Bush. "I stepped off the plane and looked at a newspaper and thought, 'Oh my God," she said. "Ford funded the project last spring, before Bush became president. Suddenly there are these new initiatives. Things are getting a little more exciting." One effect of her topic being in the news has been that she no longer needs to explain charitable choice to the people she interviews. "Now everybody knows what it is," she said. "UMass is involved in the first systematic study of what is going on. "John DiIulio, who heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he suggests that they really want to look at data," she said. "It's sort of interesting in the sense that we are probably in the forefront of doing a comprehensive study, and it's already in the works." Jensen, who is affiliated with the Center for Public Policy and Administration, and her colleagues are looking at whether policy making in this area is based on ideology or empirical evidence, she said. The study is comparing the social-service work of faith-based organizations in Indiana, Massachusetts and North Carolina since the 1996 welfare reform act. Jensen is the principal researcher in Massachusetts. Commonwealth College sophomore Ann Kinchla will assist her by tracking new developments in Washington. Jensen said charitable choice stems from the 1996 welfare law, which has a section that allows for religious organizations to compete for government funds to provide social services, even if the organizations are "pervasively sectarian." "The law in 1996 devolved a lot of authority to the states," she said. "This is a further development in a longer trend that's been reshaping government at the local level for the last 25 years: the use of private organizations to provide government services." Groups that receive federal funding may now use moral or religious concepts in running programs and may hire and fire program staff based on their beliefs, she said. Although they may not use government contracts or grants to pay for religious activities and must provide alternatives to clients who object to having a religious provider, Jensen said, these laws call into question the separation of church and state and their constitutionality has yet to be determined. The research group already has access to data in Indiana that dates back to 1996, and they are hoping to get similar access in Massachusetts and North Carolina. "We will try to address the question of whether faith-based organizations are superior to non-faith-based organizations in providing services," she said. "There were claims that it was simply known that these religious charitable organizations do a superior job of helping people, and no data exist to back that up. We're trying to see whether there is any evidence. Other areas besides efficacy and accountability are legal and constitutional issues. "We're wading in now. We're trying to figure out what's going on. The turf is changing underneath our feet. "I hope to learn something that is useful to somebody in Massachusetts." |
