ACLU files lawsuit against Lake schools over gay-straight middle school club
The American Civil Liberties Union announced Wednesday that it filed a lawsuit against the Lake County School Board on behalf of 14-year-old Bayli Silberstein, who's been blocked from starting a Gay-Straight Alliance at her middle school.
Bayli, a bisexual eighth-grader, has been trying to organize the gay-straight club at Carver Middle School in Leesburg since November. Her efforts have since been thwarted by her principal, who took no action on her club application, and School Board members who tried to create new student-club rules to keep her gay-straight club from forming.
"I'm really frustrated that we've reached this point, but we can't wait any longer," Bayli said, in a statement prepared by the ACLU. "The bullying at my school is really bad, and I don't want to have another school year go by without kids feeling like there's a safe place where they can be themselves. But the School Board keeps trying to stop us."
Last week, School Board members then tabled a vote on a new student club rule that would have allowed Bayli's club to form. The ACLU contends that the School Board's inaction amounts to a denial of the club, which violates a federal law protecting students' ability to organize clubs, as well as the First Amendment.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-gay-straight-aclu-lawsuit-20130501,0,3390762.story
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