Public schools routinely host a range of student clubs organized around identity, culture, politics, and community service. Black Student Unions, Latino Heritage clubs, Asian American clubs, Muslim Student Associations receive recognition from the school. Jewish student clubs and activities must be treated equally in all respects.
Case Study: Good News Club v. Milford Central School , 533 U.S. 98 (2001)
Milford Central School in New York adopted a community use policy that allowed district residents and groups to use school facilities after hours for activities including instruction in education, learning, or the arts, and for social, civic, and recreational purposes. The school permitted outside groups like the Boy Scouts to use its building. But when the Good News Club, a private Christian children’s organization, applied to hold its weekly after-school meetings in the school cafeteria, the school denied the request. The superintendent declared that the Club’s proposed activities — singing songs, hearing Bible lessons, and memorizing scripture — were the equivalent of religious worship and were prohibited under the policy. The Supreme Court held that exclusion of the Good News Club constituted viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment. The Court explained that the school had created a limited public forum by opening its facilities to groups that promoted moral and character development. The Good News Club sought to do the same thing — teach morals and character to children — but from a religious viewpoint. The Court held that there was no logical difference between the Club’s invocation of Christianity and the invocation of teamwork, loyalty, or patriotism by other groups to provide a foundation for their lessons. The school could not exclude the Club simply because its approach to the same approved subject matter was religious in nature.
This holding applies directly to Jewish student clubs. If a school opens its forum — whether through recognized clubs, activity fairs, meeting space, or funding — to groups that address identity, culture, politics, or community issues, it cannot exclude a Jewish club on the basis that its perspective is religious, Zionist, or politically controversial. A Jewish Student Union that discusses Jewish identity through the lens of Jewish heritage and Zionism is doing what every other identity-based club does: approaching shared subject matter from its own viewpoint. A school that welcomes a Muslim Student Association, an SJP chapter, or a Latino Heritage club but denies equal access to a Jewish or Zionist club is engaging in exactly the kind of viewpoint discrimination the Supreme Court prohibited in Good News Club .
Why This Violates the Law
The Supreme Court in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens , 496 U.S. 226 (1990), held that a school that permitted clubs like a chess club, a scuba diving club, and a service club had created a limited open forum and could not deny recognition to a Christian Bible study club. The same principle applies directly: if the school permits any noncurriculum-related club, it must permit a Jewish student club on equal terms. It prohibits not just outright denial of recognition but any form of unequal treatment — including differential access to funding, meeting space, event space, bulletin boards, school announcements, and event scheduling, hosting speakers, booths at fairs, putting up posters — that likely violates the Equal Protection Clause. What families should take from this: If your child’s Jewish club is being denied recognition, funding, meeting space, or event privileges that other clubs receive, or if the school’s club fair excluded Jewish organizations while welcoming others, or if the school imposed requirements on the Jewish club that it did not impose on other clubs, document those requirements and identify the clubs that were not subjected to them.