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What happened when a student in a Michigan public school tried to start an Atheist Club? School officials, although they had approved a Bible Club, put obstacles in Micah White’s efforts. White will be among speakers at the 2008 CFAR High School First Amendment Conference, to be run this year for the first time by the ACLU of Connecticut. It will be held at St. Joseph’s College in West Hartford in early October. The ACLU welcomes expressions of interest from school principals or civics teachers: Send a short e-mail to schools@acluct.org. White recounts that he was a sophomore when his family moved to Grand Blanc, a conservative Michigan city. Near the end of the year another student wrote an op-ed in the school newspaper espousing teaching of creationism; he responded with a critique, and in the beginning of his junior year he decided to start an Atheist Club, sure he had the legal right to do so because the school had already allowed a Bible Club. Among the obstacles he encountered were being told that he couldn’t recruit members, use the PA system or put up signs, as the Bible Club was allowed to do. He had found online a guide for students interested in forming Bible clubs, which referenced a section in the federal Equal Access Act: "It shall be deemed unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings." But when he cited that passage to the vice-principal who was blocking his organizing efforts, he was initially told not to “worry about the law” but instead to worry about what Grand Blanc High School allows. Micah White’s presentation will be among several items on the October program agenda designed to stimulate discussion of student rights; students attending will have an opportunity to pursue those topics in smaller breakout groups. The target is about 170 participants. More details will appear here soon. Read Micah White’s San Antonio speech describing his experience
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