by
PageOneQ
A federal judge has issued a ruling requring a Georgia county to allow students at the White County High School to hold a meeting of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) on the school's grounds. The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
"This is a great victory for the lesbian and gay students and their friends at White County High School," said Beth Littrell the Associate Legal Director of the ACLU of Georgia in a statement released today.
Instead of allowing the GSA to meet, the White County School Board voted to take an action purported to prohibit all clubs from meeting. The ACLU, in filing the case in February of this year, challenged the School District's decision to not allow the GSA to meet. Depite the district's claim, extracurricular clubs continued to meet at the school, a fact proven in the case's trial.
"This has been the best civics lesson ever," said Kerry Pacer, one of the founders of the student group said in the ACLU statement, "I couldn't believe the school was so unfair to us when all we wanted to do was to try to address the violence and harassment against gay students. I'm relieved that the court is going to make the school let us meet."
According to the ACLU, "Federal courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of GSA's where schools tried to block their formation, upholding students' right to form the groups in Salt Lake City, Utah; Orange County, California; Franklin Township, Indiana; Boyd County, Kentucky and Osseo, Minnesota."
A copy of the decision is available in PDF format here.
