Texas high school forces student-initiated pro-life club to disband

A student at a San Antonio high school is alleging that his rights have been violated after his school shut down his pro-life club. 

Diego Salinas is a senior at Sotomayor High School near San Antonio, Texas. Earlier this year, he established a pro-life club, a chapter of Students for Life of America, which has chapters in schools and colleges across the nation. Things were apparently going well at first. 

“I have done everything correctly; I have gone through the process,” he said to local news station KENS5. “Even when I knew there were things [the school] was doing wrong, I still complied.” 

Students at Sotomayor HS say their speech is being censored after district bans club

Like other student groups in the school, he started an Instagram account for the club, calling it “Sotomayorforlife” to distinguish it from other pro-life chapters, much like other clubs in the school such as “SoCatsBibleStudy” or “Soto_tabletop.” The Asian Pacific student group also had an Instagram account, “AAPIWildcats,” with the school’s logo as the account’s profile picture and the bio declaring it “Sotomayor’s Official AAPI Club.” 

Unlike these other clubs, Salinas’s club was singled out, apparently for its pro-life views.

This, sadly, isn’t anything new. In 2021, an Indiana freshman sued her school, Live Action News reports, after they shut down her pro-life club — also a chapter of Students for Life. The president of a pro-life club in Las Vegas filed a complaint after she faced bullying and harassment at school for involvement in pro-life activities, and she alleges the school did nothing to stop it. Other pro-life students were entirely prevented from forming pro-life clubs at their North Dakota schools in 2015. 

Once the club’s Instagram page started gaining attention, Salinas was called into the administrative offices and was forced to delete the Instagram account. 

READ: Las Vegas teen & Thomas More win fight to start school pro-life club

It was allegedly at this point that the school chose to enforce the Northside Independent School District policy on Salinas’ group only. The policy states that non-academic school groups shall “in no way imply to students or the public that they are school-sponsored. All letterheads, flyers, posters, or other communications that identify the group shall contain a disclaimer of such sponsorship.” 

The district’s guidelines also state, “the Superintendent’s designee shall approve or reject the request, subject to the availability of suitable meeting space and without regard to the religious, political, philosophical or other content of the speech likely to be associated with the group’s meeting.”

Rather than rename the club to allow it to be in compliance with district policy, Salinas was reportedly prevented from holding any more meetings or activities, essentially forcing it to disband. 

“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,” Salinas said. “The same meeting we were having when I was called into the office, I deleted the account in front of [the assistant principal]. That’s how compliant I was. I said, ‘It’s okay, I just want to be able to have my group and move forward.’”

“I think it was very, very distinct discrimination,” he added. 

The school’s decision to apparently suppress Salinas’ speech and allegedly violate his rights may have come from outside pressure from parents, who began emailing the school when they discovered the existence of a student-led pro-life club. 

“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.”

Legal counsel representing Students for Life of America reached out to the school this week. 

“Unconstitutional censorship comes in many forms,” said General Counsel for Students for Life of America Zac Kester to KENS5. “The policies at Sotomayor High School, or the application of those policies to my client, violate his rights to free speech as a student at a public school.”

Salinas, meanwhile, just wants to have his club reinstated. 

“I just want to have a space for my group to be able to go,” he said. “It has only been positive, only been educational, and has in no way [perpetuated] hate to other students or anyone at the school.”

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