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Post by Nathan on Sept 21, 2004 18:20:28 GMT -6
Sir Robert, you are the only one I know that has a professional background in law. Might I, again, ask a question of you? First off, a little background: I'm Vice President of my school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). On Thursday the FCA pres. and I will be meeting with the Supreintendent of the district to discuss the rights of our organization. We feel that it is our right to have the same freedoms as other clubs have. We would like to be able to use the P.A. system to announce upcoming meetings/events. We would like to be able to use bulletin boards to get students aware of us. We would also like to be allowed to set up a table in the commons during lunch periods (the commons is located right next to the lunch room). All these things are things that every other club at school has the right to do. We are not allowed to do any of these. The FCA pres. has already discussed this with the principal of our school and he has told us that the only reason we cannot do these things is because we are a religiously oriented organization, and therefor not school sponsored. I was allowed to look at the district's policy and it said that non-school sponsored organizations had the right to set up tables, use the PA, and post on bulletines. However, in all these circumstances, religious content was the exception. I intend to use research from this source on Thursday: www.aclj.org/index.asp I guess all I'm asking is if you have any suggestions or advice on what I should do. Or if you know of any federal or MO state laws, or court cases, that I could use in our defense. Thanks again!!
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Post by MasterRDavis on Sept 21, 2004 18:40:47 GMT -6
Mission Accomplished!! Man...am I good or what? Yeah - we all know it. Anyway, here's what I've got for you. You print this out and mention to your Superintendent that you intend to press this if he/she doesnt allow the FCA to meet, and such. I have no doubt that a court in Missouri would side with the FCA on this one. Here goes...
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There is a Section of the US Code that deals with something called "Equal Access". It pertains mainly to religious oragnizations within public schools, and how they are dealt with. Here is the Section that pertains to our needs:
United States Code Title 20 Chapter 52 Section 4071
"Sec. 4071. - Denial of equal access prohibited
(a) Restriction of limited open forum on basis of religious, political, philosophical, or other speech content prohibited
It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings.
(b) ''Limited open forum'' defined
A public secondary school has a limited open forum whenever such school grants an offering to or opportunity for one or more noncurriculum related student groups to meet on school premises during noninstructional time.
(c) Fair opportunity criteria
Schools shall be deemed to offer a fair opportunity to students who wish to conduct a meeting within its limited open forum if such school uniformly provides that -
(1) the meeting is voluntary and student-initiated;
(2) there is no sponsorship of the meeting by the school, the government, or its agents or employees;
(3) employees or agents of the school or government are present at religious meetings only in a nonparticipatory capacity;
(4) the meeting does not materially and substantially interfere with the orderly conduct of educational activities within the school; and
(5) nonschool persons may not direct, conduct, control, or regularly attend activities of student groups.
(d) Construction of subchapter with respect to certain rights
Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to authorize the United States or any State or political subdivision thereof -
(1) to influence the form or content of any prayer or other religious activity;
(2) to require any person to participate in prayer or other religious activity;
(3) to expend public funds beyond the incidental cost of providing the space for student-initiated meetings;
(4) to compel any school agent or employee to attend a school meeting if the content of the speech at the meeting is contrary to the beliefs of the agent or employee;
(5) to sanction meetings that are otherwise unlawful;
(6) to limit the rights of groups of students which are not of a specified numerical size; or
(7) to abridge the constitutional rights of any person." -------------------------------
The law clearly states that there must be EQUAL ACCESS for all student-run clubs; if you have another club at school that is student-run, and not school sponsored. Even if there are no other such clubs, the FCA still, at the very least, has the right to assemble at school and hold meetings. You might be dodgy with using the PA System, unless other student-run, non-school sponsored clubs are also allowed to do so. There haven't been any cases in Missouri that pertain to this Code, but California (an arguably less religious state then Missouri, mind you), had the following:
2001-MAR-3: California: In a classic violation of the Equal Access law, the Saddleback Valley Unified School District had ruled that Justin Van Schiock, could not hold meetings of his chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the Mission Viejo High School. They also denied his club official recognition. The school recognized other student-run clubs, so the Equal Access law applied. In a unanimous ruling, The California Court of Appeal ordered that the Equal Access law applied. The School District must recognize the club and give it access to all the normal in-school media.
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Post by Nathan on Sept 21, 2004 19:03:48 GMT -6
Thank you, I greatly appreciate this!
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Post by MasterRDavis on Sept 21, 2004 19:04:40 GMT -6
Yes yes...not a problem.
*cough* Roblandia *cough*
hehehe
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Post by Nathan on Sept 21, 2004 19:10:03 GMT -6
you could be Honorary Regional Chancellor of Roblandia.... what would be care? we could claim more land!
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Post by Nathan on Sept 23, 2004 16:00:59 GMT -6
Well.. we lost... for now. We told the superintendent that the Equal Access Act would allos us to do what we wanted. But he said that the Act did not protect religious materials.
However, he did write down a list od our concerns and will present them to the School Board... hopefully something good will come of it.
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Post by MasterRDavis on Sept 23, 2004 21:15:41 GMT -6
He's right - the Equal Access Law does not allow for the distribution of religious materials. But the FCA IS permitted to use the School for meetings, and should be able to use the PA system, so long as other non-school run clubs are doing so.
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Post by Nathan on Sept 24, 2004 16:14:49 GMT -6
Darn, well... the principal called me and the pres. out of school today to tell us what was going on. The super was "very impressed" that we took the initiative and the principal was also very pleased that we did this with proper procedure, so because of that, the disrtict's attorneys are looking over any and all court cases and laws to determine if the district's policy needs to be redone.
Hopefully some good will comemout of this.
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Post by MasterRDavis on Sept 24, 2004 17:02:35 GMT -6
Very good! I am glad to hear that they are at least looking into it for you. Who knows? You might be credited with changing your School System's rules and procedures. I have one last suggestion; contact the local papers. Talk to someone there and let them know what's up...including the part about the lawyers being called in to review your findings. Nothing like a little pressure from the press to help ease things along.
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Post by xon on Sept 26, 2004 13:49:41 GMT -6
I don't think there is any reason to draw undue attention to what has happened here. Up in Missouri, with all the immigrant and quasi-religious population, anyone is liable to bring on a lawsuit, even if they know the law says that the FCA is right on. Lawsuits are messy, cost money, and settlements leave suspicion. The school doesn't want that, and so that's why their policy was strict from the beggining.
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Post by Nathan on Sept 26, 2004 17:29:03 GMT -6
Yeah, as much as i dont like it, I completley understand the district's point of view. The FCA pres. and I have already decided that we do not want to make a *huge* deal out of this. We dont want it to seem like the FCA is a "straing-arm" organization that goes in and demands anything it wants. We hoped the administrators would realize the unconstitutionalality of their policy and loosen the restrictions a bit.
when that didnt happen, we were put into a real bind. A lawyer friend of the president's family is going to talk to the super and hopefully ha can use all that fancy legalese talk to make the admins reconsider.
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