In an attempt to avoid a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Board of Education of Boyd County, Ky., decided in December to ban all school clubs in the district in an effort to shut down a recently formed Gay Straight Alliance in the high school.
In October, a council which decides all issues related to school clubs approved the application by a group of about 20 students to form the GSA. The students had been urging the school to allow a GSA since February 2001. It was only after the ACLU sent a letter to the school explaining that the Federal Equal Access Act required the school to treat all non-curricular clubs equally that the council reversed its position and permitted the GSA.
A local minister then launched an appeal to the decision which prompted the school to cancel all clubs.