American Civil Liberties Union

We've just gotten word from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the ACLU has won our case on behalf of Diane Schroer, a retired Army Colonel who was offered a job as a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress, only to have the offer rescinded when she told her future supervisor that she was in the process of gender transition. You can read the decision here.

As students head back to school, things are a bit different these days at Ponce de Leon High School in the Florida panhandle. Following an ACLU lawsuit over the summer, anti-gay censorship by school officials is no longer being tolerated, and the school has a new principal.  We’ve told you about this case before, but in case you missed it, this new story from the Associated Press tells a bit more about why a young woman named Heather Gillman decided to stand up for her LGBT classmates and the First Amendment, and how her small town is still a difficult place for gay kids and their friends to grow up:

When a high school senior told her principal that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents and ordered her to stay away from children.

He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.

The American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued the district on behalf of a girl who protested against Principal David Davis, and a federal judge reprimanded Davis for conducting a "witch hunt" against gays. Davis was demoted, and school employees must now go through sensitivity training.

And despite all that, many in this conservative Panhandle community still wonder what, exactly, Davis did wrong.

Yesterday, a federal judge issued his official opinion in a school free speech case that ended earlier this summer. The published opinion is a fascinating read and a thing of beauty for those of us who value the First Amendment and believe in equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

In other news, the school at the center of this case just announced this week that it is bringing in a new principal. Interesting!

If you’re a keen watcher of LGBT news you may have been following the story over the past few weeks about a gay-straight alliance club (GSA) in South Carolina; now is your chance to get involved and help these students out.

When the principal of Irmo High School announced his resignation over the formation of a GSA at his school, it made headlines. Now, even though gay-straight alliances are protected by federal law and can be found at over 2,000 high schools throughout the nation, the school board of District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties has proposed a new clubs policy that would discourage students from joining the GSA and restrict the activities of many clubs.