Ruling: Florida
School District Must Allow GSA

A Florida federal court on Wednesday ruled that school officials in Okeechobee, Fla., must allow a gay-straight alliance to meet on campus, according to the ACLU in a press release.

In a precedent-setting ruling arising from a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, Judge K. Michael Moore upheld his earlier ruling that GSAs do not interfere with abstinence-only education and, in a legal first, held that schools must provide for the well-being of gay students to the same extent as straight students.

The ACLU filed the suit in November 2006 after students at Okeechobee High School were denied access to meet on campus by their principal, Toni Wiersma.

Then-senior Yasmin Gonzalez approached the ACLU for help, and after several failed attempts by the ACLU to convince the school to comply with the Federal Equal Access Act, the lawsuit was filed.

The ACLU won a preliminary injunction in 2007 allowing students to meet on campus after repeated failed attempts by the defendants to characterize the club as "sex-based." The ACLU prevailed in Okeechobee this time around on both Equal Access Act and First Amendment grounds.

A copy of the opinion in can be viewed in www.aclu.org/lgbt/youth/36195lgl20080729.html. (The Advocate)