Van Schoick v. Saddleback Valley Unified
| Decision Date | 28 February 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. G022813.,G022813. |
| Citation | 87 Cal.App.4th 522,104 Cal.Rptr.2d 562 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Justin VAN SCHOICK, a Minor, etc., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. SADDLEBACK VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
Walsh & Declues, J. Michael Declues and Gregory A. Wille, Santa Ana, for Defendants and Respondents.
Plaintiff Justin Van Schoick appeals an adverse summary judgment on his claim under the Federal Equal Access Act (FEAA or the Act) (20 U.S.C. § 4071). He contends Mission Viejo High School violated his rights under the Act by refusing to grant a student club of which he was president, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), rights enjoyed by all other clubs permitted to meet on campus.
In particular, plaintiff challenges the trial court's conclusion that two other student clubs—the Key Club and the Girls League—were "curriculum related" primarily because participation in them satisfied a graduation requirement that all students perform eight hours of community service. Because it found those clubs were curriculum related, the court reasoned the provisions of the FEAA were not triggered and the school could, therefore, lawfully exclude his club from campus. We reverse because the court went beyond its role on summary judgment of searching for triable issues of fact when it resolved the factual disputes concerning the Key Club and Girls League.
Mission Viejo High School is a secondary educational facility within the Saddleback Valley Unified School District (the District), both of which receive federal monies. During the spring semester of the 1995-1996 academic year, Van Schoick received word from his football coach, William Smith, of an organizational meeting for the creation of a local chapter of the FCA, to be held at the home of another teacher, Douglas Burt. In addition to plaintiff, Smith, and Burt, an adult FCA organizer and nine other students attended the meeting, as did Burt's wife.
The attendees met for about 90 minutes, during which they discussed the FCA's purpose and aims. Subsequently, these and other students met regularly—initially at a nearby thrift store on Monday nights—and were usually joined by Burt and Smith. An FCA organizer also attended sometimes. Group officers were chosen, and plaintiff was elected president. At the meetings participants discussed the significance of various biblical passages. This Bible study was planned by the elected officers, together with Smith and Burt. In time, the students also began meeting informally at school during noninstructional times; these meetings were student initiated and were attended solely by students.
Eventually, the group resolved to seek formal club status at the high school.1 Toward that end, and with the assistance of Smith and Burt, the students drafted a constitution, and in May 1996, applied for recognition as an officially sanctioned club, one with the avowed aim of having "a Christian presence on campus, [and influencing] others into the Christian faith." The club's constitution declared, among other things, that succeeding officers would be appointed by the present year's four officers, "in conference with the faculty advisors," Smith and Burt. The FCA's application was denied. In rejecting the application, the principal, Duffy Clark, declared, in part, that "[t]he district has been advised that sponsorship of a student religious club would be contrary to both the United States and California Constitutions."
At that time the school district had in place a policy concerning student clubs it had adopted in the early 1990s in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990) 496 U.S. 226, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 110 L.Ed.2d 191, the seminal interpretation of the FEAA. Pursuant to that policy, each campus was to be a "closed forum," which meant, among other things, the only student clubs that could be allowed on campus would be "curriculum related." That curriculum-relatedness requirement could be met easily by existing clubs that, for instance, related directly to the subject matter of a course, such as a French or Spanish club, or to the body of courses as a whole, such as clubs promoting academic excellence and so on.2 How to categorize existing clubs that had a more attenuated connection with the curriculum, i.e., the Key Club and the Girls League, so-called "service clubs," was more problematic.
This was the solution adopted by the Saddleback Valley Unified School District's Board of Trustees (the Board): Approved at the Board's May 11, 1993 meeting, Board Policy 6142.4 declared that the subject of community service was to be a component of the social studies curriculum at each high school grade level.3 In addition, it established a new requirement that all students either perform eight hours of community service or write a relatively lengthy research essay on community service in order to graduate.4 Then, perhaps intentionally to salvage certain service clubs whose curriculum relatedness might previously have been questionable, the Board decreed that the community service graduation requirement could be satisfied by eight hours of participation in a qualified community service organization, which included service clubs such as the Key Club and the Girls League.
Thus, with all of the favored clubs arguably in the curriculum-related category, defendants were able to maintain that Mission Viejo High School was a closed forum to which the provisions of the FEAA therefore did not apply. Accordingly, the FCA had no right of access and was denied recognition as an official campus club.
Dissatisfied with the denial of the club's application, plaintiff instituted this action, alleging, among other things, that defendants violated his rights under the FEAA by denying his application. That is, plaintiff alleged that the high school permitted other noncurriculum-related student clubs, the Key Club and the Girls League, to meet on campus and use certain campus facilities, thereby making the high school a "limited open forum" and triggering the protections of the Act. Plaintiff also averred his proposed club was composed of "students who meet and fellowship [sic ], share their experiences as youths, singsongs, study the Bible, and who perform various charitable acts within the community to help persons in need of financial assistance, and other needs." The FCA sought official club status in order to hold meetings on campus, meetings which 5
Defendants subsequently sought summary judgment, arguing that, among other things, the provisions of the FEAA were inapplicable because Mission Viejo High School was a "closed forum." The school had closed forum status, defendants argued, because all student clubs on campus, including Key Club and Girls League, were curriculum related, the condition precedent to closed-forum status under the Act. Defendants noted that the District had made the subject of community service a component of the social studies curriculum at each high school grade level. And the Key Club and Girls League were curriculum related because each satisfied the District's community-service graduation requirement (ignoring plaintiffs claim that the FCA "perform[s] various charitable acts within the community to help persons in need of financial assistance, and other needs"). In any event, defendants' argument continued, even if Mission Viejo High were a limited open forum and the Equal Access Act applied, the FCA still could be denied access, both because the group was not student initiated—which defendants asserted was required by the Act—and allowing it access to school facilities would violate the establishment clauses of the state and federal constitutions.
The court granted defendants' motion. It concluded the FCA was not entitled to access under the Act because of the provision in the club's constitution giving Burt and Smith some authority over the selection of each succeeding year's officers. Likewise, because of those two teachers' involvement in the club, granting it access to campus would amount to impermissible state sponsorship of religion. Moreover, the court concluded that, because participation in Key Club or Girls League satisfied Mission Viejo High's community-service graduation requirement, those clubs were curriculum related and the high school maintained a closed forum to which plaintiff had no right of access under the Act.6
The FEAA provides in pertinent part that "[i]t shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives Federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings." (20 U.S.C. § 4071(a).) The Act's protections are self-limiting and apply only with respect to a school whose campus is a limited open forum, which is created "whenever such school grants an offering to or opportunity for one or more noncurriculum related student groups to meet on school premises during non-instructional time." (20 U.S.C. § 4071(b).) Here, in concluding that Mission Viejo High School had not created a limited open forum, the trial court rejec...
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