Gay Student Club Barred by O.C. School Board

The Orange Unified School District board refused Tuesday to allow a controversial club called the Gay-Straight Alliance to meet at El Modena High School, setting the stage for a legal battle.

After hearing heated arguments from parents, students and outside groups before a crowd of more than 300, trustees voted unanimously to bar the club from campus.

Board member Kathy Ward, who introduced the motion to deny, said sex education is a curriculum issue and not governed by the equal access code. She said the board would welcome a less divisive tolerance club, provided it did not address sex education.

But the board must contend with a lawsuit by the club organizers.

The students, Anthony Colin and Heather Zetin, vowed to forge ahead with their case, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. Backed by two national civil rights groups, the teenagers argue that the 1984 federal Equal Access Act mandates that, if public secondary schools allow any non-curricular clubs to meet on school grounds, all groups must be afforded the same opportunity.

“I’m not afraid to fight,” said Anthony, a gay El Modena student. “I believe my voice will speak for the thousands, maybe even millions, of kids who don’t have the courage or the support to do what I’m doing. It’s about time. It’s right. And this will set a precedent that we, as children, have rights.”

The lawsuit might test interpretation of the access act, the same law that allows Christian clubs to meet at public schools. The El Modena lawsuit is the fourth one against school districts across the nation by students seeking to form such clubs.