COUNTYWIDE : Schools to Continue Restrictions on Clubs

Community activists who have been urging the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District to reinstate a chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) at Esperanza High School have expanded their demands to having the club at all three of the district’s high schools.

Last week, however, the Board of Trustees unanimously upheld the district’s current closed-forum policy, which prohibits all clubs except those that are directly related to the curriculum.

The board has said MEChA does not qualify under those guidelines.

The policy was adopted in 1989 after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that required schools to either grant club status to all student organizations or allow only those tied to the curriculum.

District officials said they chose the latter, called a closed forum, in an effort to head off neo-Nazi and other controversial groups from forming on campuses. All clubs not related to the curriculum, including MEChA, were then disbanded.

Enrique Zuniga, a counselor and MEChA adviser at Fullerton College, said the board should change its policy to allow MEChA, because the organization offers Latino students a group with which they can identify.

“All four of my daughters graduated from Esperanza, and all belonged to MEChA when it was there,” Zuniga said. “It is difficult hearing MEChA compared to Nazism when my children went through that program. MEChA is something so positive.”

Valentina Lopez, whose daughter, Grace, initiated the effort to form MEChA at Esperanza, said the district should listen to what students want when setting policies.

“We, as a community, need to listen to students when they say they want to be involved in something,” Lopez said. “They don’t want to be a part of sports; they want to look for their own identity.”

Several trustees said the issue isn’t whether MEChA is good for students, but rather what could happen if the district adopted an open-forum approach.

“The issue as a board member is not should we have MEChA, but should we have all clubs” that could form if the policy was changed, said trustee Craig Olson.