School Dis­trict With Gay Group Denies Student’s Request To Form ‘Bible Club,’ Demand Let­ter Alleges

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School District With Gay Group Denies Student’s Request To Form ‘Bible Club,’ Demand Letter Alleges

The Water­ville Cen­tral School Dis­trict in New York alleged­ly denied a student’s request to form a Bible club despite allow­ing clubs such as the “Gay Straight Alliance.”

First Lib­er­ty Insti­tute and Jones Day law firm sent a demand let­ter to the school on behalf of eighth-grade stu­dent Eli­jah Nel­son, claim­ing the school vio­lat­ed the First Amend­ment and the student’s civ­il rights. Nel­son appar­ent­ly made mul­ti­ple requests to cre­ate the club over a two-year peri­od but staff told him they “can­not have a school-spon­sored club asso­ci­at­ed with a reli­gion mean­ing that [the school] can’t fund the club or pro­vide an advi­sor.”

“By deny­ing the same ben­e­fits to the Bible club that it pro­vides to all non-cur­ric­u­lar clubs, the school has missed the con­cept of ‘equal’ in the Equal Access Act,” Keisha Rus­sell, senior coun­sel at First Lib­er­ty Insti­tute, said in a press release. “The school’s actions are uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and its jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is legal­ly flawed. The Supreme Court has made clear that the Free Exer­cise Clause pro­tects reli­gious prac­tices by both stu­dents and employ­ees in pub­lic school set­tings.”

NEW YORK, NY - MAY 13: John Cunha reads the bible while walking the streets proselytizing with other believers that the world will end this May 21, Judgment Day, on May 13, 2011 in New York City. The Christian based movement, which claims thousands of supporters around the country and world, was founded by the Oakland, Calif.-based Harold Camping. Camping is president of Family Stations Inc., a religious broadcasting network that promotes the belief that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day. Camping claims to have come to this date by a deep and complex study of religious texts. Camping was wrong on his prior end-of-the-world prediction in 1994. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

John Cun­ha reads the bible while walk­ing the streets pros­e­ly­tiz­ing with oth­er believ­ers that the world will end this May 21, Judg­ment Day, on May 13, 2011 in New York City. (Pho­to by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The let­ter states that Nelson’s request was unfair­ly reject­ed as he fol­lowed all the required steps to form a club at the school, includ­ing gath­er­ing the sig­na­tures of inter­est­ed stu­dents and sub­mit­ting a request form. The school offered to allow the club to meet as an unof­fi­cial or non­af­fil­i­at­ed group, but refused to “endorse” a reli­gious club. (‘Sign Of Great Hope’: Reli­gious Lead­ers See A ‘Fourth Great Awak­en­ing’ As Amer­i­cans Flock To Chris­tian­i­ty)

The school must approve the Bible club by Dec. 11 or face pos­si­ble lit­i­ga­tion, the let­ter threat­ens.

There appears to have been a resur­gence in the Bible’s pub­lic pop­u­lar­i­ty as sev­er­al states, such as Texas and Okla­homa, move to amp up reli­gious edu­ca­tion in pub­lic schools by requir­ing Bible lessons as a sup­ple­ment to the cur­ricu­lum. More­over, Bible sales in the U.S. have sky­rock­et­ed recent­ly in a wave some reli­gious lead­ers are refer­ring to as a “fourth Great Awak­en­ing.”

A Penn­syl­va­nia school dis­trict was sued by stu­dents in 2019 after try­ing to imple­ment a ban on dis­trib­ut­ing Bibles on cam­pus. More recent­ly, a sep­a­rate law­suit forced a Rhode Island school dis­trict to allow Chris­t­ian clubs after requests were ini­tial­ly denied.

The Water­ville Cen­tral School Dis­trict did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to the Dai­ly Caller News Foundation’s request for com­ment.

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