Illinois district agrees to equal access for Good News Clubs

The Moline-Coal Valley School District in Illinois has agreed to lift restrictions on Good News Clubs and to pay $105,351.25 in attorney fees, costs and damages, The Christian Post reports. The settlement was entered in federal district court last Wednesday. It is enforced by the court, so the district's amended policies carry the weight of a judge's order.

Child Evangelism Fellowship, which oversees Good News Clubs hosted at schools nationwide, sued the district in February, according to The Christian Post. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Rock Island Division. CEF said its clubs faced restrictions that other similar clubs did not.

Under the agreement, school officials will amend their policies so Good News Clubs get the same access to facilities as comparable nonreligious groups. The Christian Post names the Boy Scouts and Girls on the Run as examples of groups the district had placed in a different classification. From now on the Christian clubs will meet on the same terms.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represented CEF, called the outcome a "great victory for Child Evangelism Fellowship, parents, and students in the Moline-Coal Valley School District." He said the First Amendment bars public schools from discriminating against Christian viewpoints in the use of school facilities. He also said Good News Clubs give children a biblically based education that includes moral and character development, and that the clubs belong in every public elementary school, including the Moline schools.

The legal ground was laid in 2001. That year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Good News Club v. Milford Central School that public schools cannot ban the Christian club from school property after class hours simply because it is religious, The Christian Post notes. Colossians 4:3 asks God to open a door for the Word. Give thanks that a door has opened in Moline, and pray for the children who will hear the Bible taught there and for the volunteers who teach them.

Read Colossians 4:3