Oakland Schools Must Allow Christian After-School Clubs: Judge

Public schools in Oakland, California, discriminated against a Christian group seeking to hold after-school meetings, according to a new court ruling.

The facts in the case show that in barring the group, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) violated the free speech rights of Child Evangelism Fellowship and its Good News Club, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. said in the Aug. 15 decision.

Gilliam imposed a preliminary injunction that prohibits officials from denying the club access to OUSD facilities “at the same time periods and subject to the same conditions as are made available to other similarly situated nonprofit organizations.”

OUSD did not respond to a request for comment.

“This is a great victory for Child Evangelism Fellowship, parents, and the students in Oakland public schools,” Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has been representing the plaintiff, said in a statement.

The case was brought against OUSD officials in 2024 after Child Evangelism Fellowship had difficulty securing space in the district for the Good News Club, described as weekly programs for children aged 5 to 12 that feature games and a Bible lesson.

OUSD lets a variety of groups, such as the Girl Scouts, use school space after school and before 6 p.m., but officials repeatedly rejected or did not respond to inquiries from the Good News Club, according to court documents.

One principal wrote in an email to the Child Evangelism Fellowship that “as a public school, we are not in support of Evangelism on our campus.”

In filings, OUSD lawyers initially said that it did not have enough space to host the clubs. They also said that it only allows programs that are held by lead agencies or subcontractors, although it acknowledged that, at times, it lets other organizations use its facilities.

The lawyers for OUSD added in a recent brief that letting the fellowship use campus space would violate the U.S. Constitution because its program is presented “from a Christian viewpoint” and that “students from other faiths could not help but experience discrimination because one religion would inevitably be elevated (i.e., sponsored, endorsed, supported) by staff who are working under a District-operated (and government funded) Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.”

Gilliam said that position “is simply wrong as a matter of well-established law.”

He pointed in part to the 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Good News Club v. Milford Central School. Justices in ruling on a similar set of facts said then that the Constitution was not implicated because “the Club’s meetings were held after school hours, not sponsored by the school, and open to any student who obtained parental consent, not just to Club members.”

“OUSD does not address these cases, and its filings are remarkably short on caselaw,” Gilliam wrote in his ruling. “In short, the Court finds that the law and facts clearly favor Plaintiff’s position that OUSD violated [the fellowship’s] free speech rights.”