The Palmer High School Gay- Straight Alliance will be allowed the same privileges as other school clubs following a lawsuit settlement announced Tuesday.
The Colorado Springs District 11 school board settled Monday, agreeing to let the club meet on campus as an official student organization.
In a 2003 federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, members of the club accused school administrators of discriminating against them.
School officials had refused to recognize the club since 1999, according to the suit. The club wanted to have announcements on the school’s public-address system, be allowed to hang posters freely and be pictured in the yearbook like other clubs.
Although school officials said they did not recognize the club because it was not related to the curriculum, they did recognize nonacademic clubs, such as Crime Stoppers, the Sci-Fi Club, the Chess Club and the Mountain Bike Club, the ACLU said.
The agreement rectifies that imbalance, Colorado ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said.
“This is the first time that the Gay- Straight Alliance at Palmer High School has been allowed to conduct its activities on the same terms as all other student groups,” Silverstein said.
Sara Thomas, the Palmer student who initiated the lawsuit, said the settlement was an important victory.
“Palmer is not abnormally intolerant or hateful, nor is it abnormally accepting,” said Thomas, 19, now a sophomore at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. “Any school, regardless of its level of tolerance, needs a gay-straight alliance to provide information to the greater school community.”
Similar clubs already exist at 50 Colorado high schools, according to the ACLU. The clubs’ mission is to reduce harassment, discrimination and bias over sexual orientation.
School board member Craig Cox, who cast the lone opposing vote, said he believes the settlement leaves the district vulnerable to future litigation over student groups. The board relented over concerns that continuing the legal fight would be too expensive, he said.
“That’s fine and dandy, looking at the short view, but how do we ever determine whether a club is too outrageous for the district?” he said.
But the district has no legal right to make that kind of judgment, which was the crux of the lawsuit, Silverstein said.
“Once the school allows any student club to meet that is not directly connected to the curriculum, then it has to allow all student clubs to meet,” he said.
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
