Student Can Oppose Homosexuality at School

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Student Can Oppose Homosexuality at School

Special Report - October 31, 2007
A student who was required to attend homosexuality “diversity training” at his Kentucky school can proceed with a lawsuit seeking damages against school district officials for implementing a policy forbidding him and other students from sharing their Christian beliefs on homosexuality. The U. S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case Morrison vs. Bd. of Education of Boyd County said the school board policy had a “chilling effect” on the students’ First Amendment rights, and it remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings.

The case originated when a group of students who sought to form a chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at Boyd County High School sued the school district because the club and all other student clubs were banned. When the students were granted a preliminary injunction allowing the GSA equal access that was afforded other student groups, the school district entered into a settlement that “required the school district to adopt policies prohibiting harassment on the basis of actual or perceived ‘sexual orientation,’ and to provide mandatory anti-harassment training to all students.”

It was during the mandatory anti-harassment training carried out pursuant to the settlement in the lawsuit that Timothy Morrison claimed his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression were “chilled.” He and his parents filed suit challenging the policy. After the lawsuit was filed, the school board changed the policy to allow students to express anti-homosexual speech unless it “adversely affects a student’s education or creates a climate of hostility or intimidation.”

The Sixth Circuit held that a past “chill” on First Amendment rights was enough to sustain a suit even for nominal damages. It also held that the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s policy “would deter a person of ordinary firmness from exercising his or her First Amendment liberties in the way that the plaintiff alleges he or she would have, were it not for the defendant’s conduct or policy.”

“The policy this school board adopted is very similar to a bill (H.B. 1366) that was introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly last session,” said North Carolina Family Policy Council Attorney Tami Fitzgerald. “School policies or laws that prohibit harassment on the basis of ‘sexual orientation’ and then require anti-harassment training along those lines run the risk of violating the First Amendment rights of students whose beliefs do not condone homosexuality.”