Blogging for America

As Alison Bechtal has noted the frontier for LGBTQ rights has moved to the next generation; high school students and younger are coming out. Unfortunately, they are being meet with a lot of homophobic actions such as that of the School Board of White County (Cleveland) Georgia School Board which banned all non-academic/curricular clubs in the White County High School a year after a Gay-Straight Alliance, PRIDE, was organized. This ban circumvents the Equal Access Law. PRIDE now meets off campus, yet other non-curricular clubs, such as the shooting club, still meet on campus. That the High School officials allow some non-curricular clubs to continue to meet on campus while barring others is discrimination and violates the federal Equal Access Act which requires GSAs to be treated like any other student group. The ACLU has filed suit against the White County School District officials for violating the students’ rights under the federal Equal Access Act and the U.S. Constitution; and has asked for a preliminary injunction to let non-curricular groups meet on campus again.
Fortunately, Federal Courts have ruled in students favor across the country (Salt Lake City, Utah; Orange County, California; Franklin Township, Indiana; and Boyd County, Kentucky).