LGBT+ students win case against Indiana school district over free speech

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The American Civil Liberties Union won a court decision on behalf of a group of LGBT+ students at a high school in Indiana to allow them to raise money for a gay-straight alliance.

The Associated Press reported that US District Judge James Sweeney II granted a preliminary injunction for the group of students at Pendleton Heights High School in Pendleton, Indiana after the principal had barred the group from raising money on bulletin boards or anywhere else on campus.

“The differential treatment aimed at Pendleton Heights Gay-Straight Alliance by administrators is unwarranted and these students must be treated in the same manner that all other student groups are treated,” Kit Malone, advocacy strategist at ACLU of Indiana, said at the time of the lawsuit’s filing in September.

The school had argued in a court filing that boards and announcements should be reserved for activities “directly related to the curriculum of the school.”

But Mr Sweeney said the group was “likely to suffer irreparable harm.”

The ACLU of Indiana hailed the decision afterward.

“While this isn’t the first time the ACLU of Indiana has had to take on a public school for treating a GSA group differently than other student led organizations, we hope that public schools throughout the state will take notice and forgo future challenges by providing equal treatment to all student,” it said according to The Herald Bulletin.