Student-Run Secularist Clubs Encountering Problems In Schools - AU

WillyT

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Sat Apr-09-11 10:47 AM
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Student-Run Secularist Clubs Encountering Problems In Schools - AU

Student-Run Secularist Clubs Encountering Problems In Schools
April 2011
People & Events - AmericansUnited

<snip>

Efforts by non-religious public school students to form after-school clubs are running into administrative roadblocks, USA Today has reported.

The students are using a federal law called the Equal Access Act. The legislation, which passed in 1984 with strong support from the Religious Right, states that if a public secondary school allows any non-curriculum student-run clubs to meet during non-instructional time, it must allow them all. (The only exception is for clubs that might be disruptive to the school�s mission.)

Students all over America have used the Act, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1990, to form Christian clubs. Attendance is voluntary, and school staff members do not participate in such gatherings.

And...

Schools that deny atheist students equal access often claim that the groups are �hateful.� At a public school in Oklahoma, a faculty member who volunteered to serve as the requisite adviser was told by the administration that it would be a �bad career move,� leading the teacher to resign from the advisory role. Without an adviser, the club could not continue.

Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn told the newspaper that this type of intimidation from public school officials is �an illegal end-run around the constitutional rights of non-religious students.�

<snip>

Link to article: http://www.au.org/media/church-and-state/archives/2011/04/student-run-secularist-clubs.html

Link to the latest Issue (Cover below): http://www.au.org/media/church-and-state/archives/2011/04/

:kick:

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SoCalNative

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Sat Apr-09-11 10:51 AM
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1. If I were that teacher in OK

I'd have told the administration to go fuck themselves.

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WillyT

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Sat Apr-09-11 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #1

2. Yep... I Would Have Gven Them A Choice...

Either allow this club to go forward, or end any religious after-school clubs.

If not, fire me, and I'll get a lawyer and and sue the district all the way back to the Supreme Court!

:shrug:

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