An Illinois school district has reached a federal court settlement requiring it to remove restrictions on Christian after-school clubs and pay more than $105,000 in legal fees, costs and damages.
The agreement, entered Wednesday, requires the Moline-Coal Valley School District to pay $105,351.25 and revise its policies to ensure that Good News Clubs receive the same access to school facilities as comparable nonreligious organizations, including the Boy Scouts and Girls on the Run.
The settlement follows a lawsuit filed in February by Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), a Christian organization that operates Good News Clubs in schools across the country. The group alleged that district officials subjected its programs to restrictions not imposed on similar nonreligious organizations.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represented CEF in the case, welcomed the outcome and emphasized the constitutional protections afforded to religious groups.
“This is a reasonable judgment,” Staver said. “The First Amendment prohibits public schools from discriminating against Christian viewpoints regarding use of school facilities.”
The lawsuit, brought before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Rock Island Division, accused the district of imposing unequal facility rental fees and limiting the organization’s ability to distribute informational materials and participate in school events.
According to the complaint, school officials required CEF to “pay discriminatory facility use fees” and sought to “prevent them from distributing literature to students to take home to their parents, and bar them from Backpack Nights.”
“Defendants’ sole justification for treating CEF less favorably than other similarly situated nonreligious organizations is one thing: CEF’s religious viewpoint. That is unconstitutional and unlawful,” the complaint states.
The dispute comes more than two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court established a significant precedent involving the same Christian organization. In its 2001 decision in 'Good News Club v. Milford Central School', the court ruled 6-3 that public schools allowing community groups to use their facilities after school hours cannot exclude Good News Clubs solely because their activities involve religious instruction.
