Utah AG, Education Dept. Asked to Investigate School's Alleged Violation of Laws
by Jim Brown
June 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A Utah pro-family group claims a public high school in Highland broke state privacy and sex education laws by allowing its student newspaper to publish articles promoting sexual promiscuity.
The Salt Lake City-based Standard of Liberty Foundation has asked the Utah attorney general and the state Office of Education to investigate whether Lone Peak High School broke two Utah education laws. A state Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) law "forbids schools from allowing any activity which results in students revealing information concerning their sexual behavior, orientation, or attitudes." Also, Utah education law bars schools from advocating homosexuality and extra-marital sex.
Foundation president Steve Graham, whose daughter attends Lone Peak High School, says articles in The Crusader have advocated the formation of Gay Straight Alliance clubs and teenage sexual activity.
"These educators and administrators have this attitude like the parents are a bunch of nit-wits and don't deserve the respect that we actually do deserve," says Graham, "and so they just disregard the parents' desires." And in this case, he adds, "we're convinced they're disregarding the law."
Officials with the school and the state education office deny education laws were broken. But according to the Foundation spokesman, the school violated the state FERPA law by asking his daughter and another student to write opposing opinion pieces regarding a homosexual club on campus.
"And that law," he explains, "says the school is not allowed to ask the student questions in tests or school discussions or any school activity that would cause them to express their opinions or attitudes regarding a number of things, including sexuality."
Graham says the law exists to protect the health and well-being of minors while under the charge of the school and the school district. It is the obligation of the state, he says, to hold school officials responsible for allowing "illegal and harmful information to be published and distributed to thousands of impressionable and vulnerable young students."
According to a press release from Graham's group, the articles in the student newspaper contained information identical to that found on the websites of homosexual activist groups such as the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
