This happened on Monday… I had put up a post when the ACLU of NC organized it a few weeks ago.
I myself couldn’t find the news article. It is below:
ACLU rep says ban on sex-based clubs is illegal
By Holly Fesperman Lee
Salisbury Post
EAST SPENCER — A representative from the American Civil Liberties Union along with graduates of local high schools spoke Monday night against the Rowan-Salisbury School System’s ban on sex-based clubs.
Members of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education voted last August to ban all sex-based clubs after students at South Rowan High School tried to form a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club.
Board members said the GSA club and other sex-based clubs go against the system’s abstinence-only policy.
Katy Parker, an American Civil Liberties Union representative, spoke to board members Monday about a recent case in Florida that had many of the same issues.
She told board members they were denying students their constitutional rights and rights they are guaranteed under the equal access act.
That same act allows students to form a Bible club if they choose, she said.
According to Parker, the ACLU was ready to sue the school system, but students here are too afraid of retaliation to file a lawsuit.
The school system in the Florida lawsuit also banned GSAs because they were sex based clubs under the advice of attorney David Charles Gibbs.
Gibbs also advised the Rowan-Salisbury school board and offered to represent the board for free if a lawsuit was filed.
“The court said GSAs are not sex-based clubs,” Parker told board members.
Students in the Florida system won their right to form the club, she said.
“I encourage you to review the Florida case,” Parker said.
Amanda Miller, a 2005 East Rowan High School graduate, told board members about hate acts she experienced as a student.
She said other students at the school put dead squirrels in her car and administrators asked about the incident but failed to give the guilty students significant punishment.
“Being gay is not a huge city problem, it’s right in our backyard,” she said.
According to Miller, high school students need a safe and accepting place like the GSA club to turn to in high school.
May 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
I personally think that gays should be able to express them selfs at school and be able to feel safe. My school of Sawyer High School does nothingabout the bullys! I am a bi sexual and a couple of my friends always get picked on some of the teachers here even do it! And i personally think that people need to start fixing it because some kids don’t want to even come to school because of it! I mean would you walk up to a black person and call them a nigger? would you walk up to a white person and call them a wigger? no i don’t think so . . . . so why walk up to a gay person and call them a dyke or a faggot? I wish that my school would have a sfter school group where kids could go and be them selfs and then maybe straight kids can go and relise that being gay it’s bad that we are still normal people!~