Orange May Require Parents’ OK on Clubs

Faced with a courtroom defeat and a potentially costly lawsuit involving a gay student support club, the Orange school board Thursday night moved toward requiring parental permission from high schoolers who want to join extracurricular clubs.

Under such a requirement, high schoolers who want to join a gay support club on campus would have to tell their parents first. In addition, the board decided, sexual matters could not be discussed at any extracurricular club, and students would be required to maintain a 2.0--or C--average to join.

The board instructed its lawyer to draw up the language on parental permission for a future vote. The rules on high school clubs would take effect July 1.

In addition, the board unanimously voted to ban all extracurricular clubs at elementary and middle schools, starting immediately. The reason for the ban was unclear. Elementary schools have no extracurricular clubs, a district spokeswoman said. She did not know if Orange’s middle schools had such clubs.

“This has been a complex and divisive issue and very, very stressful on everyone,” said board President Linda Davis. “It’s been very disruptive. We’re very, very concerned for our students.”

Her colleague Kathy Ward said Thursday’s decision did not preclude further changes in club policy. Nor does it necessarily end legal action in the case.

Lawyers for the Gay-Straight Alliance, though, raised concerns that the move seemed targeted at that club alone.

“Certainly, a parental consent requirement will have a greater effect on some clubs than others,” said David Codell, who represents the teen founders of the club. “There is a concern that some students want to attend a club like this in order to address issues of intolerance that they may be facing in their home lives.”

Nor were anti-club forces mollified.

“I’m just not sure it’s the right answer,” said Heidi Romero, who has a child at El Modena High School and who would prefer that the gay support club there not be allowed to meet. “I have moral convictions about the club.”

The school board was faced with a weighty decision after it was sued by two students at El Modena High who wanted to start the club. Equal access rules do not allow schools that accept federal funds to pick and choose which extracurricular clubs they will allow based on what might be discussed at meetings.

In December, the school board denied the club access to campus on the grounds that student discussions could impede the district’s sex-education curriculum. The students last Friday won a preliminary injunction allowing them to meet.

But the case has splintered parents and students at the school and throughout the district, and even led to a brief scuffle Wednesday outside El Modena.

Thursday night’s meeting--the first since the 31,000-student district lost the court ruling and the club held its first meeting--was packed with about 200 parents and students on both sides of the issue, some holding signs.

Seven parents addressed the board early in the meeting, five of them opposed to the gay support club.

“I’m not embarrassed to beg of you and plead with you to please protect our children,” said parent Sherry Lewis, who argued for the board to eliminate all extracurricular clubs. “Forget what the judge said, forget the media here today; think about our children.”

El Modena parent Suzanne Jamieson, however, backed the club and its 58 official members.

“I want to believe our community has a heart that’s big enough for everyone. . . . We have 58 really brave kids at El Modena. . . . Some of them think they may be gay. Most of them are standing up for the rights of those who are harassed.”

The club’s Wednesday meeting prompted a protest by anti-gay activists from Orange and Utah who object to the group as promoting propaganda that could shape shaky teen identities. Police were called to disperse the shouting and shoving match that began when pro- and anti-club forces met in the street outside El Modena.

The club’s founders, sophomore Anthony Colin, 15, and junior Heather Zetin, 16, have filed a federal lawsuit against the district, claiming that the board violated the landmark 1984 federal Equal Access Act.

“It’s a victory in disguise,” Anthony said after the Thursday decision. “We’ll still be able to meet for the rest of the semester, so--yay!”

A federal judge hearing that case found last Friday that the students had a “strong likelihood” of winning their case and granted them a preliminary injunction. The case itself is scheduled to reach trial this summer.

That left board members to consider a variety of options, from dropping their defense of the lawsuit altogether and allowing the alliance to banning all extracurricular clubs, including the alliance.

Continuing with the case could get very expensive, legal experts say. School districts that have lost similar cases have been forced to pay $300,000 or more for students’ legal fees. The Orange school officials estimate they have already spent up to $50,000 for their defense.

In Salt Lake City, school officials banned all extracurricular clubs rather than allow a gay club. And parents who oppose the El Modena club have said they would prefer a similar decision in Orange.

Under such rules, an academic group such as a Spanish club would be allowed, but Christian or chess clubs would not.

The situation in Utah was somewhat different because the board acted before students filed a lawsuit or won an injunction to meet, legal experts said.

Since a judge already has granted the students an injunction, the court might look askance at attempts to prohibit extracurricular clubs after the fact, said Anthony Scariano, a member of the National School Boards Assn.’s Council of School Attorneys.

“That could be seen as retaliation,” said Scariano, who represents 200 school districts, mainly in Illinois. “I would be very careful about advising them that this is the way to get out of this.”

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Staff writer Lisa Richardson contributed to this report.