Student Speech: School Boards, Gay/Straight Alliances, and the Equal Access Act
Student Speech: School Boards, Gay/Straight Alliances, and the Equal Access Act
Todd A. DeMitchell and Richard Fossey, 2008 B.Y.U. Educ. & L.J. 89 (2008)
This article contains four parts. The first part provides an overview of the Equal Access Act and its legislative history. The second part discusses the Supreme Court’s treatment of the EAA in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act. The third part discusses all reported litigation brought by gay and lesbian students seeking to have a student club devoted to their interests recognized by school districts under the Equal Access Act. The article’s fourth and final part discusses the themes that have emerged from EAA litigation and the policy implications for a school district when considering whether to permit a gay or lesbian student group to meet on high school campuses under the EAA. The evolution of case law on this topic suggests that school authorities will best serve the basic aims of public education by granting gay and lesbian student groups the right of equal access to school premises in compliance with the EAA and the basic constitutional principal of the right of free speech.