by Carolyn Bower
The grand opening of the Applied Scholastics national headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri took place on Friday, and in the classic tradition of not telling the whole story, CEO Bennetta Slaughter marked the occasion by denying the organization’s close ties to the Church of Scientology:
The words, teachings and photos of Hubbard appear in a hall just inside the main entrance of the complex at 11755 Riverview Drive, about a half-mile north of Interstate 270. So do photos of prominent Scientologists such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Anne Archer and Isaac Hayes. Applied Scholastics appears prominently on the Scientology Web site. Leaders of Applied Scholastics say their organization is separate from Hubbard’s Scientology, that it is based on his educational techniques.
“We are strictly an educational organization,” said Slaughter. “We are not part of the church,” she said. “We are tax-exempt. We use the materials that Ron Hubbard researched and codified. And we get results.”
Read the rest of the story here.
What Slaughter fails to mention, of course, is that the “school” pays huge licencing fees to the church for the privilege of using this material. Not to mention, of course, the fact that Applied Scholastics schools and teaching methods are seen by many as a thinly veiled recruiting tactic to bring new members into the church.
Slaughter, of course, is no stranger to controversy – or, for that matter, to dancing around the truth. She was heavily involved in the case of Lisa McPherson, a former Slaughter employee who died while under church and under suspicious circumstances, and was at the forefront of the church’s efforts to derail the wrongful death lawsuit that resulted from McPherson’s death.
Slaughter was also on the scene after the Reed Slatkin scandal broke, making an ill-fated effort to corral angry investors as part of the Scientology damage control strategy.
For more information on Bennetta Slaughter’s past incarnations, click here.