California Educators Casually Trampling on the Rights of Christians

It seems that educators throughout California casually trample on the rights of Christians until conservative lawyer Dean Broyles intervenes.

Earlier this year, Grossmont College in El Cajon refused to allow a Christian pro-life speaker on their campus quad until Broyles threatened to sue the school for First Amendment violations.

Around the same time at El Cerrito High School in the Bay Area, similar events unfolded. The principal ousted a Christian student group from its regular meeting room and barred their speaker from campus because one parent of an LGBT-identified student complained about her.

El Cerrito High School is part of the West Contra Costa Unified School District.  The day after Broyles sent a letter to District officials,  the group was given a meeting room.

The principal has since resigned.

The People Believing in Jesus Club (PBinJ) had approximately 60 members and was meeting during lunch in the classroom of their faculty advisor, teacher Elsa-Jennie Bliss. One of their regular speakers was a community leader named Olivia Liou.

It seems that in December 2024,  Liou made a comment in one of her appearances that did not conform with LGBT orthodoxy. And the parent of a student in the club complained to school officials. Broyles declines to specify exactly what Liou said because he says it is not relevant to how the club was treated.

On January 17, the faculty advisor told a PBinJ student leader that High School administrators had complained to her about Liou and she did not want Liou speaking at the club anymore.

On Friday, January 24, Principal Malcolm Norrington confronted Liou when she was at the school volunteering for a different activity, according to Broyles. Norrington told her not to speak at the club anymore because one student felt “uncomfortable” with her presence.

Then the faculty advisor, apparently under pressure from the principal, told the students that they could not use her classroom anymore for their club.  So the students that day met outside in the cold instead.

Broyles, president of the National Center for Law and Policy, soon sprung into action. He was contacted by one of the adult speakers of the club. He says his clients are the student leaders of the club.

On February 3, he sent a letter to the District Superintendent, the principal and board members, demanding that they comply with the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act and “cease and desist its discriminatory actions targeting” the club and provide a faculty advisor and meeting room for the students.

He said that by “unilaterally kicking the Christian PBinJ Club out of their meeting room into the cold and attempting to bar an invited adult speaker to participate in its club meetings, [El Ceritto High School]  administrators and teachers have abused their governmental authority and discretion and has thereby violated, and is continuing to violate, the students’ civil rights including, but not limited to the freedom speech and the free exercise of religion as protected by the First Amendment and the federal Equal Access Act.”

The Equal Access Act says schools can not discriminate against student groups based on their speech and that if schools open their facilities to one group then all other groups must also be allowed.

Broyles also said that West Contra Costa Unified School District “Employees Who Engage in “Viewpoint Discrimination” Towards Religious Clubs Violate the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause Prohibitions Against Government Hostility Towards Religion.”

He said school officials had targeted the group because of its conservative Christian viewpoint.

The principal and faculty advisor, Broyles wrote, “abused their discretion in a viewpoint discriminatory manner, clearly favoring comparable secular clubs, including LGBTQ+ affirming clubs, over religious clubs, which they treat much more harshly, attempting to target and penalize the Christian Club, not because of anything that was said in club on campus, but because of the sincerely held religious beliefs of its invited guest speaker regarding off campus statements she allegedly made regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. Norrington and Bliss’s anti-religious conspiracy is a not so-subtle departure from the government neutrality towards religion and represents not-so-covert suppression of the Christian religion at ECHS.”

The day after the letter was sent, the school relented.  The High School allowed the PBinJ club to meet in a different classroom and Liou was allowed to address the students. The club now meets regularly in the High School library.

Broyles told the California Globe that how the school treated the club is rather typical. “Across America, Christian students and families are ignored, disparaged and marginalized in public school classrooms in a myriad of ways that violate the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, “he emailed.  “Marxist diversity, equity and inclusion ideology favors groups on the ‘oppressed’ list, not allegedly ‘oppressor’ Christians, who are disfavored and not tolerated amongst the educational elites.”

But he said Christian students have the law on their side. “The freedom of students to form religious clubs according to the dictates of their consciences on public school campuses, engage in Bible reading, prayer, and other in religious activities, and also invite speakers who share their faith, were the key principles that were upheld” by the resolution of this case. “These rights are protected by the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause, Free Exercise of religion Clause and the federal Equal Access Act.”

West Contra Costa Unified School District Superintendent Kim Moses did not reply to a request for comment.