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Board won't revisit gay club issue soon
By KRISTEN KING, Advocate staff writer
Several dozen people showed up at the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board's regular meeting Thursday on both sides of a McKinley High School senior's attempt to start a Gay Straight Alliance club on campus.
But Board President Roger Moser and Vice President Jackie Mims said the board has no plans at the moment to reconsider the issue.
The board came one vote shy of approving a policy two weeks ago that would have guaranteed all clubs equal access to school campuses.
Their inaction left the decision up to individual principals, who were told to follow newly crafted school system rules and the federal Equal Access Act, which basically says all extracurricular clubs must be treated equally.
Since then, McKinley Principal Almenia Freeman Warren has said the club can form if it follows the rules and the law.
Also, students have protested at the school, and a group of local ministers have come out strongly against the club.
Several of the ministers attended Thursday's meeting and had hoped the board would vote to reconsider the item and at least require all extracurricular clubs to meet after school hours.
That would have required eight of the 12 board members to vote to reconsider the item, and Mims and Moser said there weren't enough votes on the board for that to happen.
"At this point, there is no basis for the votes to make a change. It's not the absence of thought. It's just the opposite," Moser said.
"Just as the public is all over the map on this issue, in a sense, so is the board."
The ministers said they're hoping they can get the issue on the agenda of one of the board's meetings within the next week or so.
Several students suspended for protesting the Gay Straight Alliance also showed up at Thursday's meeting, as did Martin Pfeiffer, the senior who's working to start the club, and several others who have supported the club.
None of the audience members were given a chance to address the board during the meeting.
All left the board room quietly, though most stayed in the lobby of the board office discussing the issue.
The students who were suspended talked to the media after the board meeting about their desire to start an "Anti-Gay Club" at McKinley that would focus on issues like education and computers.
Pfeiffer said after the meeting he was pleased the board didn't revisit the issue Thursday.
"I'm glad the board realized this is what it should be: a non-issue, that there is a law, it's being followed, and we'll wait to see what my principal says" about his application for the club, he said. "I'm sorry it's taken some of the School Board members this long."
Baton Rouge Advocate, February 26, 2000
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McKinley student punishments stand, school officials say
By Advocate staff report
Teachers and administrators at McKinley High School can identify all of the 36 students suspended after protesting the Gay Straight Alliance last week, and Superintendent Gary Mathews will let that punishment stand.
Mathews said that if the suspensions are challenged, he will back McKinley High Principal Almenia Freeman Warren.
"She must maintain order at the school, and I will support her in doing so," Mathews said.
Mathews said all of the suspended students "disobeyed adult directions to go back to class following the protest."
Some of them also ran through the hallways, banging on closed classroom doors, he said. School officials have repeatedly said the students were suspended for disrupting class time, not for protesting a club.
Mathews made his comments Thursday at the tail end of a 41/2 hour meeting of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. He was responding to an audience member who complained about the suspensions.
A group of ministers who have spoken out against a student's petition to start a Gay Straight Alliance club at McKinley also asked Mathews to investigate the three-day suspensions.
The suspensions started Wednesday, and the students will return to their regular classes on Monday. While suspended they were assigned to a discipline center, but some refused to go. If they attended the discipline center all three days, the suspensions won't appear on their permanent records.
Several students have said the suspensions weren't fair, arguing they don't think school administrators could be sure who participated in the protest.
The Gay Straight Alliance's application hasn't been officially approved yet. But Warren has said the club can start if it follows the law and new school system rules.
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Last updated 3/2/2000 by Jean Richter, richter@eecs.Berkeley.EDU