Districts Get Warning Against Prohibiting Gay-Straight Alliances

In Texas, Flour Bluff High School students demonstrate earlier this spring in support of a schoolmate who was denied permission to form a gay-straight alliance at the school. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to school districts across the country last month, warning them against banning such organizations.

—Todd Yates/Corpus Christi Caller-Times/AP-File

By Nirvi Shah

The U.S. Department of Education is warning school districts across the country against taking steps to ban students from forming gay-straight alliances and similar support groups in their schools.

“Officials need not endorse any particular student organization, but federal law requires that they afford all student groups the same opportunities to form, to convene on school grounds, and to have access to the same resources available to other student groups,” a June 14 “Dear Colleague” letter from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reads.

Citing 1984’s Equal Access Act, created to prevent discrimination against religious groups at schools, Mr. Duncan said schools must treat all student-initiated groups equally, pointing out the benefits of groups that address issues related to students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in particular, and noting the verbal and physical abuse...