It’s Decision Time Again for Orange Unified

Trustees of the beleaguered Orange Unified School District will tackle some tough questions Thursday that could split the board over what step to take now that a gay support club has won a court decision enabling it to meet on campus.

Among them: Is keeping the club out worth ejecting all extracurricular clubs from schools? And how much money are trustees willing to spend on a court battle against allowing the club?

With support from many parents concerned about what influence the club might exert on impressionable teenagers, trustees in December unanimously excluded the club from El Modena High.

Now the board could possibly oust the gay-straight club by making all extracurricular clubs--including Christian and chess clubs--off-limits. It could decide to appeal the injunction delivered Friday and continue fighting the case. Or it could accept defeat and drop the issue.

Whatever trustees do, the next step is likely to affect the district for years to come and has the potential to expose fissures in the unified front the board has presented so far. At least two trustees oppose barring all clubs--a tacit acknowledgment that the gay students support club will meet at El Modena for a time. The club’s first meeting is scheduled for today.

“I’m not interested in closing down all the clubs at school,” Trustee Robert Viviano said. His colleague Bill Lewis also said he would “never” vote to bar extracurricular clubs. The other five trustees could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Viviano also cast doubt on the idea of continuing the legal battle. “As far as the issue of expending additional funds for more legal action, that one I’ll have to consider carefully. I think, perhaps, we may have had our day in court.”

El Modena junior Heather Zetin, 16, struck a similar chord, saying the public attention focused on her school since the controversy arose would be defused once the skirmishing between students and trustees is over. Zetin and classmate Anthony Colin, 15, founded the gay-straight club and are suing the district for possible violation of the federal Equal Access Act.

That landmark 1984 law--enacted to allow Bible clubs to meet at public schools--prevents schools that accept federal funds from picking and choosing among extracurricular clubs based on what might be discussed at meetings.

“I think the best thing they could do is to allow our club to meet--like any other club--and not ban all clubs and not continue with the lawsuit,” she said. “It’s a waste of time and money for them to keep fighting us. It’s divided the whole community because it has become such a big news thing. If they would allow us to meet, all the attention would die down.”

The attention flared again Monday, when El Modena was plastered with hundreds of crude fliers likening the school to a gay dating service. School officials are still investigating the posting of those fliers, which may have been a prank. Some students have suggested that a rival school was using the fliers to goad El Modena students, but school officials say they have no information that backs that up.

Parent Donna Sigalas, who formed a group of parents opposed to the club, said many of her group’s members would like to see the board press on with its fight. She stressed that their opposition to the club is not a license for pranks or harassment of the El Modena students.

She favors having the board eliminate all formal extracurricular clubs, if necessary. Students could still gather informally at school, she said, but not pass out literature or advertise their meetings. And under those conditions, she said, gay students could meet as well as any other group.

District Has Spent $50,000 So Far

“There’s a strong voice that says to suspend the clubs,” Sigalas said. “But I think it’s real important that students realize that suspending the sanction of clubs doesn’t mean the kids can’t meet informally.”

The district has already spent up to $50,000 on its defense--enough to hire a new teacher for a year or purchase a few dozen new computers. Similar cases have resulted in districts spending $300,000 or more for the defense of student plaintiffs, let alone the district’s legal bills.

The longer the case continues, the higher the tab, said John Yoo, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law School.

“My personal opinion is that the school district will [ultimately] lose,” said Yoo, who served as general counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 1995 and 1996, as gay groups first used the Equal Access Act to gain entry in high schools. “A lot of these defenses could drag it out for a long time. . . . You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in attorneys’ fees if the plaintiffs should ultimately prevail. And that’s not including the school district’s fees for defense.”

But some fights are worth the money, Sigalas said. And this, she believes, is one of them.

“How much is the welfare and the well-being of the children worth?” she asked. “What’s it worth? How much is it worth if you look at the AIDS statistics? . . . I think it’s worth the fight if that’s what it takes to protect the children from becoming sexually active at a young age.”