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Loading ...2 Fla. students challenge school ruling on gay club
03.06.2009 8:36am EST
(Jacksonville, Florida) An attorney for two gay students at a north Florida high school told a federal judge Thursday they should be allowed to form a campus club promoting tolerance toward gays, despite a school prohibition.
But a lawyer for the Nassau County School Board said the group’s name, Gay-Straight Alliance, is against school policy.Yulee High School students Hannah Page and Jacob Brock, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, are suing the school board to overturn its decision banning them from forming the club at school. Yulee is about 25 miles north of Jacksonville, near the Georgia state line.
U.S. District Judge Henry Adams Jr. said he would issue a ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction “as soon as I can,” but gave Nassau County three days to submit additional written arguments. The students want an injunction to allow them to meet until the case goes to trial.
ACLU Attorney Robert F. Rosenwald Jr. argued that Page and Brock had been the target of anti-gay epithets and threats of violence at school and wanted to start the Gay-Straight Alliance to open a discourse among students.
Attorney Frank Sheppard, who represents the school board, said the district’s main complaint is the name of the group, saying it does not approve of groups dealing with sexual orientation and noted the school has an abstinence-based sex education curriculum.
“If they change the name and comply with Nassau County School Board policies they can meet,” he said.
The judge questioned Sheppard over the school’s objection to the name.
“A Gay-Straight Alliance, that covers everybody doesn’t it?” Adams asked.
After the hearing, Page said the group doesn’t want to change its name because it represents what the club is about.
“This school is ashamed of using the word ‘gay’ In this environment,” she said.
School officials had no problem with the idea of tolerance and rejecting bullying, Sheppard said, but they believe the club will be disruptive.
Rosenwald noted that the Fellowship of Christian Athletes meets on campus. He told the judge that an FCA booklet includes references to sexual issues, including a student pledge to remain sexually pure and an article about dealing with homosexuality in the locker room.
Sheppard said he was unaware of the document and Adams said he could have three days to respond to it.
Rosenwald asked for the injunction, noting that Brock, a junior, and Page, a freshman, might be out of school before the case is decided.
“These students are in a short window on this,” he said.
The ACLU recently won a similar case in Okeechobee. A judge there ruled schools must provide for the well-being of gay students and cannot discriminate against a Gay-Straight Alliance.
Rosenwald said the Okeechobee County School Board paid $326,000 in attorneys fees in the case.
pissyunique hit the nail on the head…just because the term “gay” is in the name of the club, the school board is drawing their own ignorant conclusions that it has to do with sex, which it totally, absolutely is far from it. It is a safe environment where students, gay, straight and everything in-between and along the sides, can meet, converse and share a common goal: to make their school safe for all individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
They need to get a copy of the National School Climate Survey that GLSEN has been putting out, the most recent was just released in October 2008, outlining that bullying and harrassment of LGBT students are the rule, not the norm. And those numbers have hardly changed since the first survey in 2001.
When the school board sees that having a GSA actually decreases the bullying and harrassment; decreases the number of LGBT students that drop out of school due to the fear and torment they endure; that those same students get higher GPA’s with a GSA, whether they are a part of the club or not; and that they are more likely to pursue a higher education in college after graduating…then they will realize that they are in error and are being no better than the bullies that the students have to deal with in the halls. They are just as guilty of being bullies, period.
wat does the name gay-straight alliance have to do with sex.. sexual orientation n sex are totally different.. they go hand n hand but are still different.. i could be abstident but know my sexual orientation.. that comment just shows ignorance and hate.. it shows that the ignorant man doeant know anything about gays except the fact we fukk the same sex.. how can such an ignorant asashole be over a high school.. ur suppose to teach tolerance and accpetance at school.. not closed-minded ignorant hate
randy, most people can’t get past the idea that being gay isn’t just about sex partly because we define ourselves that way. When I look on places like craigslist in the ‘gay’ section, all I see are sexual hookups, and pornographic ads. Behavior like this makes us look very very bad, and it isn’t likely to change.
I wish these kids the best of luck, but they’re in the redneck part of the country where you get funny looks for not drinking sweet tea all the time. Hopefully the badly underfunded school system will lose this case, and stop spending our tax money on lawyers.
So schools must cut expenditures for services to benefit students but have lots of money for lawyers to promote their dedication to bigotry! That says a lot about the quality of the administration and school boards in these areas. Bigotry comes first always, and quality of educaiton somewhere after that!
We wish these two guys the best of luck. The government needs to bump up the penalties for hate crimes and the State of Florida needs to start enforcing them. Document and report them all and force law enforcement to act.
I remember when I was a gay teen and had never had sex with anyone, and people would refuse to believe I was gay because I hadn’t had sex. Why is it that people, especially conservatives, just can’t get their head around the idea that it isn’t just about sex?
I agree with Allan, I mean honestly…the schools are willing to spend badly needed money that could be used for improving the education system to keep paying for lawyers. What a waste.
And schools have enough money to keep paying lawyers for defending themselves from lawsuits. If the schools would stop making decisions against open conversation and stop thinking that the GSA’s are trying to teach people how to have sex. I use to go to a Bisexual support group in Ft. Lauderdale and most of the time we didn’t even talk about being Bisexual. The money saved could actually go towards the schools budget to save all the classes that are being cut because of budget cuts. But will they ever learn?
Look fairly cut and dried.. It’ll happen!
The CFA is what just blew ther case wide open..
They are gonna find out the hard facts of life in this country.. Its ALL or NOTHING!
Either welcome GSA or good bye Christian suckahs!
How rude of these kids, fighting for some
safe space in their schools. Over forty
years ago I’ve been out of the public
school system and I only wish such a thing was around back in the day.
Nothing is going to happen. This area, north of Jacksonville, is extremely conservative. All the politicians in this area are extremely conservative. Including the Federal Judges and Magistrates. Example, the City of Jacksonville, conducted a day of faith with a prayer service paid for by the city. They ACLU and and Atheist group filed and injunction to stop the city. The FEDERAL JUDGE said it was okay for the prayer service to continue. The First Baptist Church of Jacksonville is THE predominate player in culture and politics. The local bars are being harassed by the Sheriff’s Office and closed down one of them. The Sheriff’s Office was presented a good Christian award last year by the Evangelicals of the are. The most important organization to belong to is the Southside Businessman’s Club which does prayers for GW Bush to this day. And if you are found out to be gay in the areas outside of San Marco and Riverside, you get fired, lose you house, and harassed.
And that is the city. Imagine the redneck, trailer dirt place that Nassau is. Imagine your worst idea, and that is Yulee and Fenandina. These kids are heroes. They are fighting where there are no people with Rainbow Flags. They are fighting in a place where their safety and lives are in true danger.
So, if you wonderfully liberated northern queers want to do something to help our are, we could sure use a sign of unity.