Christians Crusade for School Club : Education: Students at Sunny Hills High in Fullerton say recognition would not imply support of their beliefs, but wary officials say it’s a question of church-state separation and equal access.

For several weeks, the guitar music, prayers and Bible study at the Thursday afternoon gatherings of a group of Sunny Hills High School students have been supplemented by a new agenda item: the crusade.

The goal of these 80 students, who are members of a 3-year-old Christian club, is official recognition by the school. With such sponsorship, the Christians, like most other campus clubs, would be eligible for privileges such as a having a photo in the school yearbook, being able to compete for Club of the Year and wearing club T-shirts on campus.

The school allows the Christians to meet weekly on campus during lunch hour, but district policy forbids official school sponsorship.

The students, however, have pressed on with their demands through the school newspaper and Christian advocacy groups, sparking debate on the campus and in the community about church-state separation.

On the one side are the Christian students who say school sponsorship is their legal right and would not imply official endorsement of their religious beliefs.

“We want to be like the other clubs on campus. We want to have fund-raisers,” Ki Tae Kim, 17, said. “The big catch that opened our eyes is that we cannot do community service. But if we are recognized as a club, we can do those things and have more of a presence on campus.”

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Edward Kim, 18, a senior and a member of the Christian group’s steering committee, pointed to an incident of cheating on the Scholastic Aptitude Test last year, as well as the alleged involvement of Sunny Hills students in the slaying of Foothill High School student Stuart Tay, as reasons he believes his club’s influence is needed on campus.

“At Sunny Hills, it seems students’ morals have been skewed. They can’t tell what’s right and wrong anymore,” said Edward Kim, who is no relation to Ki Tae Kim. “They think what used to be right is no longer absolute, and what’s wrong is not so bad.”

On the other side are school officials and civil libertarians who believe that non-sponsorship is key to maintaining the constitutional ban against government establishment of religion. Also, they say, sponsorship should be reserved for those clubs that are open to all students, without regard to their religion.

Fullerton Joint Union High School District officials say they have no plans to deviate from the board policy, which also withholds recognition of political groups. The one Sunny Hills political club, a Republican group, also lacks school sponsorship.

The 23-year-old policy on campus clubs was revised in 1991 to reflect U.S. Supreme Court rulings that upheld the constitutionality of the federal Equal Access Act, said Ron Anderson, assistant superintendent of the Fullerton district. That 1984 law requires schools that allow non-curriculum-based clubs on campus, such as a stamp club, to also open their facilities to religious groups during the school day, provided they are entirely student-run.

“Our policy allows for non-curricular clubs to be sponsored, except political clubs and religious clubs,” Anderson said.

“The policy was put into place after student input and input from parents, the PTA and faculty,” Anderson said. “It was sensitively done. We’re not abridging their First Amendment rights.”

George Giokaris, principal of Sunny Hills from 1989 until the middle of last month, met with the Christian student leaders before he took his current job with district administration.

“The students came in and asked honest questions and appealed for sponsorship. We had the policy reviewed by our district counsel and found there was no case law that would require us to change it,” Giokaris said.

“I believe that whatever club the school sponsors needs to have equitable access to all students . . . and not limited because of ethnicity, gender or religious or political beliefs,” he said.

Chris Herrera, spokesman for the Southern California affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the school is “within its rights and is acting properly” in denying sponsorship of the club. “It falls under the separation of church and state.”

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The students and their advocates, however, argue that a 1990 Supreme Court ruling said that religious clubs should have equal standing with other non-curriculum-based groups, such as Sunny Hills’ Key Club and Future Business Leaders of America. The students are pressing their appeal at the district level and sending letters to local congressmen, fundamentalist Christian leaders and other officials.

According to Steve McFarland, director of the Christian Legal Society of Annendale, Va., the June 4, 1990, ruling “held that official recognition (of religious clubs) was not only permitted under the First Amendment but was required under the Equal Access Act.”

One of the students’ local mentors is Susan Rigby, assistant youth pastor at the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton.

“I don’t view (club sponsorship) as the school supporting religion,” Rigby said. “The school already supports so many things that are anti-religion, anti-traditional, anti-American. When Christians fight for their rights, they’re viewed as the idiots of the world by non-believers. They view us as a threat. What are they afraid of?

“The students don’t know why they would be turned down for a club. To them it appears someone is out to get them and not giving them what they have a right to.”

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Other Sunny Hills students and parents, however, are uncomfortable with religious groups getting any more campus privileges. Heidi Altman, 16, a junior, believes clubs exclude students by their very nature.

“Even though these groups say everyone is invited to the meetings, I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a Christian club meeting, because I’m not a Christian, and for that reason I feel excluded,” Altman said. “There are a lot of different cultural clubs on campus, for Koreans and blacks and others, and there’s a lot of talk on campus about ethnic and religious tension. But all these clubs do is increase that tension.”

Sara Jastroch, 17, a senior, is close friends with a leader of the Christian group, yet opposes having religious associations on campus.

“I don’t think they should be allowed to meet,” Jastroch said. “School is not the place to show religious belief. It’s fine to meet off campus.”

James E. Wood Jr., who has been analyzing religious and social issues for 35 years as a professor at Baylor University, a Baptist school in Waco, Tex., says the Equal Access Act “opens a Pandora’s box.”

“I have serious problems with. . .schools becoming the rendezvous and the facilitator for the advocacy role of religious groups,” said Wood, who is also director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies.

“It’s a form of sponsorship when the school provides not only the property, but announcements and the presence of a faculty member in the room. To a child, that’s sponsorship--and legitimation. It gives status to the religious group. He could easily be recruited by peer pressure into religions that are viewed quite unfavorably by the parents.”

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The Christian students’ positions on sponsorship can make their ideas seem contradictory. For example, they complain that because they’re prohibited from describing themselves as an official Sunny Hills club, they’re prevented from doing community service.

Two sponsored school clubs recently helped the Red Cross with fire-related work, but the Christian group decided not to participate, either as a private club or as individuals, Edward Kim said.

“It’s the principle,” he said. “If we’re going to do the work, we want to give credit to our faith. The Key Club. . .were all wearing those red crosses on their backs, and they didn’t even know that the Red Cross was started by Christians. They were doing the work that we Christians started. We want to get back to what we deserve.”

He also says discussions of morals must be in a religious context, and so he questions the high school’s ability to teach them. The school’s decision to not sponsor religious clubs “makes it seem that morals are not allowed on campus,” he said.

“They’ve imposed an academic honesty code. You have secular institutions trying to impose morality,” he said. “The district wants to have the effect of religion without recognizing it. It’s not possible.”

Membership in the Christian club dwindled to 10 or 15 last spring, but more aggressive leadership this fall has increased the club’s ranks and led to the organized bid for recognition, Ki Tae Kim said.

“The fight for our cause really blossomed this year. It has encouraged a lot of people,” he said.

The students attend several churches in the Fullerton area and occasionally hold their Bible study meetings in local parks. They are trying to contact Christians at other Orange County high schools to share information they’ve learned on their crusade.

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Even though they’re seeking some privileges, the Sunny Hills Christians have more campus access than religious groups at some other Orange County high schools.

Some districts, such as Saddleback Valley Unified, deal with the Equal Access Act by simply banning all non-curriculum-based clubs. These closed-campus rules allow the districts to avoid controversy that might arise through having religious groups at high schools, said Dave Larson, an attorney for several Orange County school districts.

(The Civic Center Act, part of the California Education Code, requires schools to provide space after school hours to religious groups, as long as the groups compensate the district for electricity and other costs, Larson said.)

The Sunny Hills Christian leaders, however, point out that the Fullerton district would not be setting a precedent by sponsoring their club.

“The law can be interpreted either way,” Edward Kim said. “Other high schools have interpreted the Equal Access Act to mean (official recognition) for non-curricular clubs.”

San Marino High School in Los Angeles County is one such school. Last year it officially recognized its Christian club, said David Crist, assistant principal.

“We’re working cooperatively with them so it does not become an evangelical thing on campus,” Crist said. “We’ve asked them not to have speakers and they’ve abided by that. We talked to them to make sure they recognize and understand there would be kids (on campus) from different religious backgrounds.”

The club, called Acts, gets a yearbook photo and is allowed to post flyers on campus announcing meetings. Crist said he was unaware of any parental criticism of the policy.

“We’ve managed to take a low-key approach on this so far . . . instead of a confrontational approach or a legalistic one,” Crist said.

Larson, the lawyer for several Orange County districts, sees a trend toward more districts opting for closed campuses “as more controversial social issues surface,” such as political groups demanding increased campus privileges.

For now, the Christian students have been promised help with their cause by the Rutherford Institute of Charlottesville, Va., an advocacy organization for churches.

“You fight for your cause but not at the expense of trampling other people,” Ki Tae Kim said. “We want fair ground for all. You can’t neglect your responsibilities given to you by God.”