Posted on 07/15/2005 3:07:55 PM PDT by SmithL
ANTIOCH - A Deer Valley High student club prevailed this week when the school district, under threat of a lawsuit, agreed to allow the club to hold a political rally.
In a meeting with the American Civil Liberties Union and half a dozen club members, Antioch Unified School District officials on Tuesday agreed to allow Students for Peace and Justice to stage an anti-war rally on campus this fall.
The district indicated that it was not interested in spending money to pursue the matter in court, said ACLU attorney Julia Harumi Mass, who represented the club's two founders.
Patrick Edelbacher and Amir-Ali Sarkeshik admitted they were surprised by how quickly the district backed down when confronted with the prospect of legal action.
But they were also satisfied with this victory for free speech.
"It was 100 percent in our favor," said Edelbacher, 18, the club's vice president. "It was exactly what we had been asking for the whole time."
Neither Deer Valley High School Principal Jo Ella Allen, nor Superintendent Dennis Goettsch, nor school board president Claire Smith was available for comment.
Edelbacher and Sarkeshik, 17, formed Students for Peace and Justice last fall. They were hoping its broad-based mission would make it harder for school administrators to block their protests on the grounds that issues being addressed were beyond the club's scope. They also wanted to pave the way for other student groups.
Trouble reared its head, however, when the club asked then-interim principal Allen for permission to organize a campus peace rally in February.
She twice denied the request, saying anti-war statements might not only be inaccurate but derogatory, offending other students and creating a volatile atmosphere.
Although Allen relented after conferring with Goettsch, she told the club that it could not use a public address system at the gathering.
The day before the scheduled protest, however, Edelbacher said, Allen called him and Sarkeshik out of class and ordered them to spend the next two days confined to a classroom in an on-campus suspension. She took the action after a military recruiter alleged the students had harassed him.
Allen also changed her mind and again banned the rally, said Edelbacher, who instead took part in an after-school demonstration across from the Deer Valley High campus.
The club also contacted the ACLU, which informed Allen she was violating the students' rights to free speech under the U.S. and state constitutions as well as California's Education Code.
On June 20, the organization sent the Antioch school district a letter spelling out the terms it had to meet to avoid a lawsuit:
• Come September, students must be allowed to hold on-campus rallies during all three lunch periods as well as afforded the use of a sound system for speeches and recorded music.
• The speeches do not require prior approval from school administrators.
• The district must expunge the suspensions from Edelbacher's and Sarkeshik's records.
District officials also voluntarily agreed either to rescind or revise a district policy requiring students to obtain permission before distributing literature on campus.
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