The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Cleveland County schools for what they claim is a violation of the First Amendment — and an LGBT trivia game is at issue.
The ACLU and attorney Charles Johnson have filed a lawsuit against the Cleveland County Board of Education. The suit alleges First Amendment violations after the board stopped a student group from playing an LGBTQ-themed quiz game.
The lawsuit said a junior student at Shelby High School created the Activism Club to discuss topics that were not talked about in the curriculum. School officials deemed an LGBTQ-themed trivia game "indecent," the lawsuit said, despite the game featuring prominent figures like Harvey Milk and Ellen DeGeneres. In December, the ACLU sent a letter to the school board.
ACLU attorney Ivy Johnson said a principal responded by mentioning the state’s Parents' Bill of Rights as part of the reasoning to stop the students from playing the game.
"They pointed to two school policies, one dealing with curricular speech, and curriculum documents and then one dealing with non-school materials which themselves are in conflict, you know, the materials can't be both part of the curriculum and then not school related," Johnson said. Johnson also said that the school also has other clubs that are focused on non-curricular topics and they have not been affected. WFAE reached out to Cleveland County Schools but did not get a response.
