S.C. school board requires parental permission to join student groups
WIS News 10 in Columbia, South Carolina, reports that after students in Richard-Lexington District Five in Irmo may form non-academic clubs next year, but before students may join any such group they will have to obtain their parents’ permission. This policy, settled on by the district’s board members at a recent meeting, follows a national discussion sparked by the formation of the Gay/Straight Alliance at Irmo High School. Some parents have already expressed support for the parental permission requirement. But others feel that it will further isolate students who do not feel comfortable talking to their parents about their sexuality. Ray Drew of South Carolina Equality says, “We look at this as a way to circumvent federal law.” Although Mr. Drew stated that his group thinks suing the district will help anyone, the group is already training students, teachers, parents, and administrators to look for “[a]nything out of compliance with federal law” next year.
Source: WIS News 10, 6/24/2008, By Stewart Moore
[Editor’s Note: The same idea also was proposed in 2005 in Georgia as a state law. See the BoardBuzz item. Last year Utah imposed strict state regulation of student clubs, an action critics charged was directed against GSAs. See the New York Times piece. In May of this year, a U.S. district court ordered officials at an Arizona high school to play a student religious club’s promotional video during morning announcements and to announce the club’s Bible study on the school’s public address system. The court found that the club had brought valid claims under the federal Equal Access Act (EAA). However, the court upheld the school district’s rules limiting student distribution of leaflets. In so doing, the court rejected the argument that such rules are not subject to the “forum analysis” that most courts have applied in such cases but to the stricter standard set forth in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), under which the rules must be necessary to prevent a material and substantial disruption to school operations. A summary of the decision and related information on these key legal questions in the culture wars are at the last link below.]
BoardBuzz on 2005 Georgia legislation
New York Times, 3/17/07, By Kirk Johnson
NSBA School Law pages on Krestan v. Deer Valley Unified Sch. Dist.