Court Rejects Suit Over School’s Expulsion of Alleged Lesbians

[The Straight Story]

Court Rejects Suit Over School’s Expulsion of Alleged Lesbians


Two students expelled from a private Lutheran high school in Riverside County over an alleged lesbian relationship cannot sue for invasion of privacy or discrimination under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

Concluding that the school—like the Boy Scouts of America—is not a “business enterprise” subject to the act, Div. Two upheld a judgment against the students, whose relationship was exposed by another student’s tip about postings on social networking website MySpace.com.

The board of directors of the 142-student California Lutheran High School in Wildomar voted to expel the two girls in 2005 after Principal Gregory Bork determined they shared what he called in a letter to the girls’ parents, “a bond of intimacy…characteristic of a lesbian relationship” in violation of the school’s “Christian Conduct” rule.

Affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Wisconsin Lutheran Synod, which view homosexuality as a sin, the school has a policy of refusing admission to homosexual students, and its conduct rule warned students of possible expulsion for immoral or scandalous conduct on or off campus.

The girls claimed they were subjected to an intrusive interrogation by Bork without their parents’ knowledge or consent, and they also brought claims for public disclosure of private facts, violation of their state constitutional right to privacy, and false imprisonment. They also asserted the school was a business operator subject to the Unruh Act because it collected fees and accepted students without regard to religious affiliation.

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2009/luth012709.htm

[baldguy]

1. If they provide a service in exchange for a fee, then they're a business.

[Unvanguard]

2. That's not the relevant definition.

The idea in anti-discrimination law is that if you offer a service to the public broadly (like, say, a grocery store), then you can't discriminate. But if you're a religious institution dedicated to serving a particular group of people in line with your values, you can--otherwise it would be a First Amendment violation.

[baldguy]

5. But the school competes in the same marketplace as every other private school.

It may not be a relevant legal definition, but it is in every other sense of the word.

The only reason this is an issue is because we've set up religion on an artificial pedestal which allows a church to engage in all kinds of activities which would otherwise be considered to be criminal, anti-social or just poor business practice - yet they're still allowed to exist just because they label themselves as a "church".

The fact is that, for the most part religious schools DO offer their services to the public at large. If they do, they shouldn't be able to hide behind their church when they discriminate.

[crimsonblue]

3. i wonder if the school is kicking out heterosexual student couple that kiss

or GASP, have a PDA.

[Kittycat]

4. I dont' know about that school - but they did at my school

Kissing got you the red chair (in house detention, in the main office, beside a glass window where every student and parent saw you). When one girl got pregnant and 'mysteriously' miscarried - the boy was quietly removed from the school (the girl happened to be the sister of the Asst. pastor's wife so she stayed - all hush-hush). Another was refused her certificate of graduation a month out, when she began to show (father wasn't from the same school). She had to enroll in summer school through the public school district to get her GED. Others before my class history were also removed from the school.

They were pretty strict on those things. Not saying any of it's right, or that hiding it helped the situation. Personally, I think if they would have taught Sex Ed, that might have helped, but then again - that would make sense, and they didn't have any.