Scouting » Citing federal law, Salt Lake City school board member Michael Clara wants rejected Cub Scouts to be allowed to meet at elementary school now.
By Ray Parker | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Mar 31 2013 01:01 am
Salt Lake City School Board member Michael Clara has jumped into the gay membership controversy surrounding the Boy Scouts of America, filing a federal
complaint against his district because a principal did not allow a Cub Scout pack to meet at Mountain View Elementary.
The complaint, Clara’s second against the Salt Lake City School District this y ear, was filed Friday with Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Clara said two parents complained to him that about 30 Cub Scouts were blocked from meeting at the school after the principal told them he was unsure whether
the district’s anti-bias policy conflicted with the Scouts’ ban on gay members and leaders.
“Now they don’t have Cub Scouts. It’s one of the best gang-prevention programs out there,” Clara, a newly elected board member from the west side of Salt Lake
City , said Friday .
Nationally , the Boy Scouts are surveying leaders and other stakeholders, and the group is expected to announce in May whether it will keep or change its policy .
District officials said they had not seen the complaint on Friday .Superintendent McKell Withers said he thought the Cub Scouts and the school had agreed to wait until the May decision and then revisit the meeting request next school year.“I thought the Cub unit was coming back next fall,” Withers said, adding he was surprised to hear about the complaint.
Clara said he was elected to represent his constituents. District leaders “don’t share my sense of urgency of the issues in my community , so my position is if you don’t share my urgency , then I’m still going to address it.”
His first civil rights complaint, which is still pending, questions whether inexperienced and ineffective teachers are over represented on the west side of the district.
The Great Salt Lake Council, which oversees the local Cub Scouts, was not a part of the new complaint, said Scout Executive Rick Barnes.
The Office for Civil Rights enforces five federal civil-rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability and age in programs that receive money from the U.S. Department of Education.
It enforces the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act, part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In short, if a school allows outside groups to meet on
campus, then the school must allow access to the Boy Scouts.The Salt Lake City School District is in the process of expanding its Community Learning Centers, which pair at-risk youth with nonprofits that offer social and medical services, such as dentistry and optometry . The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are partners with those centers, according to the district website, which Clara points out in his complaint.
“While the superintendent mulls over the banishment of the Cub Scouts from a school in my neighborhood, I am compelled to file this complaint with your office
because school officials, in their effort to eliminate societal discrimination, have instead contributed to it,” Clara wrote in the complaint.
rparker@sltrib.com
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