Vote on Gay/Straight Club Delayed

Orange Unified School District trustees postponed action Thursday on a controversial request to form a club that would foster dialogue between gay and straight students at El Modena High School.

Anthony Colin, who asked school board permission last month to establish the Gay-Straight Alliance Club on campus, said he was disappointed by the board’s unanimous decision to put off a vote until its Dec. 7 meeting and will file a discrimination lawsuit.

“We’re doing it as soon as possible,” the 15-year-old sophomore said. “They are treating our club differently than other student clubs.”

Board member Maureen Aschoff said the delay is to give the board more time to confer with attorneys regarding legal issues involved.

“This was the first opportunity the board had to [question] counsel,” she said of a closed session Thursday afternoon between the trustees and the school district’s lawyers. “I believe this board has exercised due diligence.” A standing-room-only crowd of about 300 parents and students packed the board’s meeting room, leaning against the walls and spilling out the doors. One of those in the audience was Charles Mabry, whose daughter attends El Modena.

“I feel very strongly that the club should be able to form,” he said. “I would assume it would be a positive element in the total school’s program.”

Other disagreed. “I’m opposed to the club because of the social ramification of it,” said Brenda Vasquez, who has two children in Orange Unified schools. “I’m not disappointed with the board. It just makes me think they need more time.”

Anthony Colin, along with his mother and another student, are being represented by lawyers for People for the American Way Foundation, a national civil liberties group.

Kendra Huard, director of the group’s California office, has said that federal legislation prohibits public school districts from discriminating against non-curricular clubs on the basis of political, philosophical, religious or other contents of the speech at meetings. “They have delayed, delayed, delayed,” she said of the school board before Thursday’s meeting. “By either denying it or delaying it, they will have violated his rights.”

The American Civil Liberties Union this week also said it would pursue legal action if the school district withheld approval for the club, which would be the first of its kind in Orange Unified.

School board member Martin Jacobson said Thursday night: “Any litigation causes concern because it costs the district money.” Proponents of the club “have made statements all along that they would file a lawsuit,” he said. “It really comes as no surprise.”

The proposal has divided the community and students on El Modena’s campus in Orange. A public forum sponsored by the school board Nov. 9 drew about 95 speakers who were evenly split among those for and those against the club’s formation. Some argued that school is no place to deal with sexual issues, while others said it is the perfect place to teach tolerance.

El Modena High School has more than 20 clubs, including one for Christians and another for jugglers.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.