Principal Cites Benefits of Gay Club

The principal of an Orange high school that has barred a club for gay students from campus testified Tuesday that it is helpful for students who suffer discrimination and harassment to get together to discuss the incidents.

On the second day of a federal court hearing to force the Orange Unified School District to allow the Gay-Straight Alliance onto the El Modena High campus, Principal Nancy Murray told of trying to craft a compromise that would be acceptable to the students and at the same time mollify the school board and the community.

She tried to revise the group’s mission statement, even suggesting it change its name to Tolerance for All. The students rejected her effort.

Later in the hearing before Judge David O. Carter, Luis Torres, an activist in the gay community and teacher at another school, testified that shortly before a school board hearing, Murray told him “it was out of her hands, and she wanted to approve the club.”

In an interview outside the Santa Ana courtroom, Murray’s version was slightly different. She said she told Torres that left to make her own decision, she would have OKd the club.

El Modena students Anthony Colin, 15, and Heather Zetin, 16, are seeking a preliminary injunction that would allow their Gay-Straight Alliance club to meet on campus.

The Orange Unified trustees last month unanimously barred the club from school grounds, citing concerns that the students could be pawns of outside groups and that they might discuss matters of sex education that are regulated by the state Education Code. Trustees suggested the students rename their group a “tolerance club” and pen a mission statement that specifically excluded discussions of sex, sexuality or sex education.

The trustees’ attorney, James Bowles, cast aspersions on the reason for the suit. “They want a federal case. They want an appeals court decision,” he said in an interview during a court recess. “They don’t want a club per se. They want headlines. If they wanted a club, they could have a club tomorrow. Just accept the board’s modest limitations.”

The two teens filed a federal civil rights lawsuit and are seeking a preliminary injunction allowing the club to meet until the case can be settled.

Their lawyers contend that according to the federal Equal Access Act, because El Modena allows such extracurricular clubs as the Black Students Union or Girls’ League on campus, no student groups can be denied the right to meet at school because of the political, philosophical, religious or other viewpoints that may be expressed at group meetings.

Torres, a teacher at Marco Forster Middle School in San Juan Capistrano, testified the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, a New York-based organization that promotes respect for gay and lesbian students in schools, was unaware of the El Modena group. Bowles has contended that the group is behind the efforts to form a club at El Modena.

Torres is co-chair of the network’s Orange County chapter.

Asked if the group was trying to “recruit or indoctrinate students,” he replied, “absolutely not.”

Bowles introduced a newspaper articles that quoted the network’s other co-chair as mentioning the high school group several months before it sought club status.