Illinois School District Lifts Good News Club Limits, Agrees to Pay More Than $105,000
A court-enforced settlement requires the Moline-Coal Valley district to give the Bible clubs the same building access as comparable nonreligious groups.
See where this is ›MOLINE, Ill. —
The Moline-Coal Valley School District in Illinois has agreed to lift restrictions on Good News Clubs and pay $105,351.25 in attorney fees, costs and damages, The Christian Post reported Oct. 23. The court-enforced settlement was entered in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Rock Island Division, in a suit brought by Child Evangelism Fellowship, the ministry that oversees the after-school Bible clubs.
See where this is ›Under the agreement, district officials will amend their policies so Good News Clubs have the same access to school facilities as comparable nonreligious groups. The Christian Post named the Boy Scouts and Girls on the Run as groups the district had classified differently.
Child Evangelism Fellowship sued in February. Its complaint said the district required the ministry to pay “discriminatory facility use fees,” sought to stop it from sending literature home with students and tried to bar it from Backpack Nights. The complaint said the district's “sole justification” for the different treatment was the ministry's religious viewpoint, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represented the ministry, called the result a “great victory for Child Evangelism Fellowship, parents, and students in the Moline-Coal Valley School District.” He said, “The First Amendment prohibits public schools from discriminating against Christian viewpoints.”
A federal court listing names the defendants as Moline-Coal Valley School District No. 40, its Board of Education and Superintendent Rachel Savage. U.S. District Judge Sara Darrow issued an order in the case July 31.
The dispute rests on a 2001 decision, Good News Club v. Milford Central School, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that public schools cannot bar the club from their property after class hours solely because it is religious.
What we don't know yet: The Christian Post report did not include a response from the district, and Watchman News did not find a district statement. We could not open the settlement order itself, so the terms here are as The Christian Post reported them.
