A pro-life club formed at a public high school in San Antonio, Texas, is claiming that the school discriminated against it and shut it down for its views on abortion.
Local outlet KENS5 reported that the club was a branch of Students for Life of America and was started in the fall by Diego Salinas, a senior at Sonia Sotomayor High School.
“I started up an Instagram and that Instagram had the ‘Sotomayor Students for Life’ handle,” Salinas said, according to KENS5. “Once that Instagram [account] kind of got popular, kids started finding out about the club.”
The Northside Independent School District (NISD) took issue with the use of the school’s name on social media, claiming that the group is not an official club. Instead, the NISD called the group a “noncurriculum-related student group,” meaning that the Students for Life chapter cannot “imply to students or the public that they are school-sponsored.”
“Once the administration was made aware of the account, they said that because it had Sotomayor in the name, I couldn’t change the name, but I had to delete it … I deleted the account in front of [the assistant principal],” Salinas said. “That’s how compliant I was. I said, ‘It’s okay, I just want to be able to have my group and move forward.’”
The group met one time before backlash sparked another decision from the school’s administration.
“After the Instagram account was deleted, they called me into the office and said because the club was preventing education from moving forward and because it was creating an uproar in the school, they were temporarily suspending my club,” Salinas said. “We found out later that the principal was receiving emails from parents.”
According to KENS5, Salinas now claims that his group was unfairly targeted, as other groups at the school have been able to use the school’s name and logo on social media without issues. The NISD is also not allowed to approve or reject student groups based on “religious, political, philosophical or other content of speech likely to be associated with the group’s meeting.”
Salinas said he thinks the administration’s actions were “very, very distinct discrimination” against the Students for Life chapter.
“I just want to have a space for my group to be able to go,” he added. “It has only been positive, only been educational, and has in no way [perpetuated] hate to other students or anyone at the school.”
Attorneys representing Students for Life of America have challenged the NISD’s decisions, writing a letter to the school that calls for approval of the group. NISD has said that the situation is “currently under consideration by school administration.”
LifeNews Note: Hannah Hiester writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
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