School district warned it may be violating federal civil rights law over requirement that students get parents’ approval to join club

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A school district in Mississippi is requiring students to get their parents’ permission before joining a club in an effort to reduce Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) membership, even though the district doesn’t have any existing branches.

Administrators in Rankin County school district referred to the GSA as “gay clubs”, when approving the new policy, saying they feared the clubs would conflict with the district’s abstinence-only teachings. Rather than teach safe sex, such programs urge teens to refrain from sex.

“I talked to [board attorney] Freddie [Harrell] and several administrators about what we could legally do to limit organizations like that on campus that we don’t want to endorse and don’t want,” Superintendent Lynn Weathersby said at a Wednesday school board meeting, according to the Clarion-Ledger.

Though administrators reportedly had no knowledge of a GSA club attempting to organize in the district, the Clarion-Ledger reported that a high school theater teacher was approached to sponsor a GSA club in December. The theater teacher reportedly agreed to sponsor the club, and a student submitted an application to administrators.

Attempts to hinder GSA membership brought swift condemnation from the Mississippi branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and from Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an LGBT-rights advocacy organization. The after-school GSA club is meant to encourage dialogue between heterosexual and LGBT high school students, and prevent discrimination.

The ACLU called the school district’s new policy “deeply disturbing”, and warned the district it could violate federal civil rights laws if it persists, in a letter sent on Wednesday. The warning came with the reminder that Christian groups initially lobbied for the 1984 Equal Access Act, the federal law that requires schools to allow Gay-Straight Alliance clubs to form.

“Silencing ideas in a non-curricular setting because some people don’t like them is not only incompatible with the educational values of open inquiry and wide-ranging debate that are central to our free political system – it is against the law,” the ACLU letter said.

The central Mississippi county borders eastern Jackson, the state’s largest city. The school district is the state’s largest, serving 18,000 students across 750 miles and in 27 schools.

“We believe extracurricular activities play an important role in the education of the total person,” the district’s website claims. “Our students are also encouraged to develop skills in athletics and the arts.”

Students in several Mississippi school districts have looked to organize GSA clubs recently, including in Madison County, bordering Jackson to the north, the Ledger reports.

GSA clubs have long been the subject of litigation, and several court precedents support schools’ requirement to allow the clubs.

For example, a Utah school district canceled all extracurricular activities in an attempt to stop a GSA club from forming. Students instead formed a club to discuss history taught in the district, and later sued when the school attempted to block the club’s formation. In 1999, the court ruled in favor of students’ right to organize the club.