Equal Access Act

On January 12, the Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a list of pending cases currently under investigation at elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools, sorted by aspects of the law that OCR enforces--age discrimination, disability discrimination, race and national origin discrimination, sex discrimination, and the Equal Access Act. The inclusion of an institution on this list does not mean that the institution violated a federal anti-discrimination statute; rather, it means that a complaint was filed with OCR, and the agency determined the complaint should be opened for investigation or the agency has opened a compliance review.

Religious groups like FCA and Project 7, a rapidly growing organization affiliated with the Assemblies of the Lord Jesus Christ, rely on a 1984 law titled the Equal Access Act (EAA) to conduct their activities in public schools.

For a number of years, it has been clear that the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C.

at schools that have gay-straight alliance clubs, the federal Equal Access Act which 'requires equal access to school resources for all extracurricular clubs, including gay-straight alliances and LGBT support groups.'"

Rodriguez had argued that denying Peet the chance to create a Gay-Straight Alliance violates the Equal Access Act, a law mandating that federally funded schools provide equal access to extracurricular clubs.

LGBTQ youth are becoming more open about their sexual orientations and gender identities, which has resulted in more efforts by students to form student groups to discuss issues surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity, and in turn greater resistance to the formation of GSAs from school districts that oppose them) LGBTQ students usually contend that GSA prohibitions violate their rights under the Federal Equal Access Act (2) (EAA) and the First Amendment.

Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida based his decision on the federal Equal Access Act, which states that federally funded secondary schools may not refuse equal access to non-curricular student organizations because of religious, political, philosophical, or other aspects of students' speech.

The year before, in 1984, Congress had addressed this issue in the Equal Access Act, which required public schools to allow religious and political clubs if they let students form other kinds of student-interest clubs.

In 1983, Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), a Baptist and a friend of Dunn's, introduced legislation in the Senate "to provide that it shall be unlawful to discriminate against any meetings of students in public secondary schools." After eighteen months of negotiations, this incipient legislation became the Equal Access Act of 1984, passing the Senate 88-11 and the House 337-77.

That prevents the group from posting signs and distributing fliers and is an alleged violation of the Equal Access Act since the school receives federal funds.

Due to a 1984 federal Equal Access Act, she has a right to form a non-curriculum club in a school that receives federal funds.