California School District Sued for Allegedly Rejecting After-School Christian Clubs

According to the complaint, other groups were allowed to hold after-school activities at school facilities.

A church steeple in Santa Ana, Calif., on Aug. 24, 2020. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A permanent injunction is being sought against the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in Northern California for allegedly denying Christian clubs access to public school facilities for after-school activities.

Attorneys for the plaintiff, Child Evangelism Fellowship NorCal East Bay (CEF), argued their case in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Feb. 27.

According to the complaint, the school district allowed CEF’s Good News Clubs on its campuses before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Good News Clubs are Christian after-school enrichment programs providing religious and other teaching and activities to encourage learning, spiritual growth, and service to others, as well as social, emotional, character, and leadership development,” states the complaint, filed in December.

In early 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, OUSD disallowed all clubs, according to the filing. By the spring of 2023, the district began allowing after-school clubs again.

Numerous applications by the Christian group to resume activities at the schools were allegedly stonewalled or denied for a variety of reasons.

According to the complaint, a school official from one elementary school said, “We do not think that Good News Club is a match” for the school, and “we are not in support of Evangelism on our campus.”

Denials were also given by administrators who claimed there was no available space. The complaint alleges that other non-religious groups were allowed to hold after-school activities at these schools.

The district is alleged to have violated the Free Speech, Establishment, and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and California state law.

Representing the plaintiff is the Liberty Counsel, a national nonprofit litigation organization dealing in religious liberty, pro-life, and family law cases.

Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. Courtesy of Liberty Counsel

“To date, while other organizations such as Girls on the Run and Berkeley Chess School are allowed to use the school facilities for after-school programs, CEF Good News Clubs remain excluded “by blatant religious viewpoint discrimination,” the organization said in a statement.

The Oakland Unified School District did not respond to requests for comment.

Supreme Court Ruling

Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman, Mathew Staver, said in a statement, “The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that public schools cannot discriminate against Christian viewpoints regarding the use of school facilities.”

Staver cited the 2001 Supreme Court ruling in Good News Club v. Milford Central School.

Writing for the 6–3 majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said at the time, “Milford’s restriction violates the Club’s free speech rights and that no Establishment Clause concern justifies that violation.”

“When Milford denied the Good News Club access to the school’s limited public forum on the ground that the Club was religious in nature, it discriminated against the Club because of its religious viewpoint in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment,” wrote Thomas.

According to Liberty Counsel, the organization has represented CEF in about 200 cases across America and “has never lost a case involving Good News Clubs.”

In June 2024, CEF prevailed in a similar case against the against the Hawaii Department of Education.