PDS and ETS had both attempted to insulate themselves from affiliations with partisan factions within the church. Where other seminaries that existed or would come to exist within the Episcopal Church often affiliated themselves with either the high church or low church movements, PDS and ETS focused on broad social and academic matters rather than issues of churchmanship as such. This may affiliate them with broad church movements, although neither institution explicitly identified themselves as such. EDS has continued in that tradition. Social issues PDS, ETS and EDS have all been known for their focus on pastoral action around progressive social issues. African-American education From its inception, PDS admitted and trained African-American students, which was not done anywhere else in the world. The Episcopal Church itself, originally as the Church of England under the Bishop of London in British colonies in North America, had early seen several attempts from within at including African-American and indigenous American peoples in the full life of the church; the first person to be baptized in the Church of England in North America was a Native American person. Social values, particularly with the rise of racial slavery in North America, meant that there were considerable obstacles to such practices, and debates over whether it was right to baptize African-American slaves were controversial. Clergy who baptized slaves were often expelled from their parishes by the wealthy vestries which held their contracts. The church was largely controlled by affluent whites and despite rare actions by clergy, African-American slaves and ex-slaves were largely excluded from participation in the life of the church. In 1968, ETS hired its first African-American professor, Robert Avon Bennett. Education and ordination of women In the 1880s, PDS begin training women as deaconesses. In 1929 women were first admitted at PDS in small numbers to theological education programs designed for those preparing to teach religion in colleges. ETS became the first Episcopal seminary to hire a woman, in 1941, to its full-time faculty. In 1974, after the formation of EDS, 11 women known as the Philadelphia Eleven were "irregularly" ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. Several EDS faculty members took part in the ordination and two of the new priests, Carter Heyward and Suzanne Hiatt, were employed as EDS faculty. The affiliation of EDS with this ordination would cause many bishops to refuse to send their postulants for ordination to EDS to