Extracurricular blues

On top of the normal worries of a rising high school freshman, Daniela Barca was concerned about the spiritual atmosphere on campus. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Christian at my school, and I thought others might feel the same way,” she said. But officials at her school in New York smacked down her request to start a Christian club.

Last summer Barca, 14, approached special education teacher Barbara Hargraves about starting a club for Christian students at Roy C. Ketcham High School in Poughkeepsie. Hargraves didn’t think it would be a problem, as the school had other noncurricular clubs such as Random Acts of Kindness and the Gay-Straight Alliance. She agreed to be the club’s faculty supervisor, helped Barca fill out the required paperwork, and submitted the application to the school.

After several months, Ketcham Principal David Seipp met with Barca and told her a public high school could not support a religious club because it would be “seen as exclusive,” according to Barca.

In late September, she appealed to Daren Lolkema, an assistant superintendent for the school district. “The school district celebrates diversity and the right to express who you are,” Barca wrote in an email sent on Sept. 23. “All I want is to be allowed to express who I am. Everyone deserves as much.”

But in a reply sent on Oct. 3, Lolkema denied the appeal, saying the school could not host the club due to its Christian focus. Lolkema told Barca that the club would have to “remain completely unbiased to any and all religions that could be discussed, you couldn’t limit it to the Christian faith.”

First Liberty attorney Keisha Russell said in a letter sent to Superintendent Jose Carrion on Wednesday that the school’s response violates federal law. The Equal Access Act prohibits schools from denying religious clubs’ access to school facilities that secular clubs use, she said. “As the U.S. Supreme Court explained, religious clubs must be afforded the same recognition, access, and rights as other noncurricular clubs,” Russell said.

Passed with broad bipartisan support in 1984, the Equal Access Act bars public secondary schools from allowing noncurricular, student-run groups while denying equal access to some groups because of their religious, political, philosophical, or other viewpoints. Yet 25 years later, some schools still haven’t gotten the message.

A Fellowship of Christian Athletes huddle is still trying to meet at Bozeman High School in Montana after school officials claimed a provision of the state’s constitution prohibited it. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys sent a letter to school officials on Wednesday raising constitutional and Equal Access Act concerns. A similar letter from ADF prompted Gulf Coast High School in Naples, Fla., to back down from excluding the pro-life student club Sharks 4 Life.

“It’s really puzzling because the Equal Access Act is very clear,” ADF counsel Jonathan Larcomb said. “There is no issue with a school establishing or promoting religion simply because they give a religious club the same benefits they give other nonreligious clubs. That’s pretty black and white.”