Parents of parochial school students in Pennsylvania are suing a public school district, alleging officials violated their rights by not allowing their children to participate in the district’s extracurricular programs.
Their legal complaint claims the State College Area School District (SCASD) and its board discriminated against Centre County students who attend religiously affiliated institutions by refusing to allow them to participate in the district’s extracurricular and co-curricular activities because of their parochial school affiliation.
The school district has eight elementary schools (grades K–5), two middle schools (grades 6–8), one high school (grades 9–12), and one Delta Program, which the legal complaint describes as “an alternative, democratic school with middle and high school levels for grades 6–12.”
The school district’s board has authorized upwards of 100 extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities, including 63 Advanced Placement and advanced courses at the high school, 76 high school activities and clubs, 26 high school athletic teams, along with various extracurricular and co-curricular activities at the middle and elementary schools, according to the complaint.
The legal complaint (pdf) filed in Religious Rights Foundation of PA v. State College Area School District at the U.S. District Court in Williamsport on July 10, asserts that the district is violating the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Based in State College, the foundation describes its mission as “to protect, defend, and promote the religious rights, beliefs, opportunities, and tenants of faith of its members, their families, and the greater faith community within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
The lawsuit also seeks a court order enjoining the discriminatory conduct and allowing the students to participate in the activities previously denied to them that “are generally available to the students enrolled in the State College Area School District.”
The parents’ attorney, Thomas Breth of Dillon McCandless King Coulter and Graham in Butler, Pennsylvania, said the school district’s non-discrimination policy permits non-parochial school students who reside in the district, including charter school and home-school students, access to school district educational programs and activities. Breth is also special counsel to the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm headquartered in Chicago that organized the lawsuit.
Despite its non-discrimination policy, the district justifies its exclusion of parochial school students from the same programs and activities by claiming their inclusion would take away opportunities from students attending district schools.
“The board has consistently allowed home-school students and those attending charter schools to take part in the district’s more than 100 extracurricular activities and classes, including athletic teams and Advanced Placement courses,” Mr. Breth said.
“The school district has denied those same opportunities to students attending religious schools, based solely on their religious identity. That forces parochial school students to choose between their religious beliefs and the right to participate in extracurricular activities and advanced classes.”
Breth said that similar cases have previously gone before the Supreme Court, and it has ruled that denying generally available benefits solely on account of religious identity burdens the free exercise of religion.
“The Supreme Court has made it clear that such denials can be justified only by a state interest of the highest order,” the attorney said.
“That is certainly not the case in the State College Area School District.”
The legal complaint states that in response to a request from one of the parents, the superintendent of the district sent an email on May 24 of this year that reads:
“Thank you for reaching out. We have put a lot of thought into this issue through discussions with other administrators, the school board, and our school solicitor. After carefully considering it, we cannot grant your request to change our longstanding practice of not having private school students participate on our PIAA [i.e. Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association] sports teams.
“The reason is the district has ample, and sometimes excess, participation for our teams, so there is no need to expand.
“Additionally, if we allow private school students to take part, we could be taking away opportunities from SCASD students.”
The school district is engaged in “discrimination against parochial school students because they’re forcing parochial school students to decide between pursuing their religious beliefs,” Mr. Breth told The Epoch Times in an interview.
As for the equal protection claim, the district is “treating the parochial school students in a discriminatory manner, in a different manner than they’re treating other students.”
Although the parents made a decision to send their children to parochial schools, “they’re still paying tuition for parochial school education, and they’re also paying school taxes to the State College school district,” the lawyer said.
“But for the fact that they went to parochial schools, these students would be eligible to enroll in the State College Area School District tomorrow, and they’d be eligible to participate in these activities. They would be fully eligible to receive this generally available benefit that the State College school district provides to all these other classifications of students,” he said.
“Because their parents pay taxes, and they live in the school district, they would be eligible to enroll if they so choose.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the school district for comment but had not received a reply as of press time.
