The Central Bucks School District school board announced in its latest newsletter that it will vote at Tuesday’s meeting on whether to retain the services of Duane Morris Law Firm to represent it with regards to the ACLU of Pennsylvania complaint that the district is allegedly discriminating against LGBTQ+ students. However, one of the lawyers will be former United States Attorney William McSwain, who as a GOP Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate attacked West Chester Area School District’s Fugett Middle School’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance student club on Facebook, calling it “leftist political indoctrination.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Maddie Hanna reported on it in March, noting that while McSwain deleted the post that stated “this ends when I am governor,” his campaign doubled down when asked about it.
“Whether it is hateful critical race theory, or the ‘deep social change related to racial, gender, and educational justice’ that is the GSA’s purpose, Bill McSwain believes that it is inappropriate for Pennsylvania tax dollars to be spent in public schools to explicitly encourage the progressive social justice agenda,” spokesperson Rachel Tripp told The Inquirer.
According to the GSA Network, “Genders & Sexualities Alliances, or GSAs for short, are student-run organizations that unite LGBTQ+ and allied youth to build community and organize around issues impacting them in their schools and communities. GSAs have evolved beyond their traditional role to serve as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth in middle schools and high schools, and have emerged as vehicles for deep social change related to racial, gender, and educational justice.”
So apparently McSwain was bothered by a club that provides safe spaces and a feeling of inclusivity for LGBTQ students. This is exactly what the ACLU is alleging Central Bucks School District is failing at. The ACLU’s investigation included interviews with dozens of students, family members, current and former teachers and other school staff, and community stakeholders, and concluded that LGBTQ students’ civil rights are being violated.
“Not only do we have a school district that fails to protect and support these kids, but now they’re taking all sorts of actions to basically say, there’s something wrong with you … we can’t have your books. We can’t have anybody showing support for you. We’re not even going to honor you by using your name or your pronoun,” ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director Witold Walczak told the Bucks County Beacon last month.
You can read the 70-page complaint here.
