Pro-life high school club founded in Madera

A pro-life club was recently approved at Madera South High School after an attorney addressed some initial concerns from school officials.

Jocelyn Floyd with the Thomas More Society, which represents Students for Life, said educators at Madera South were willing to have the club on campus after she provided information about students’ legal rights.

“Simply put, the general rule is that any public high school’s refusal to officially recognize a pro-life club constitutes a violation of the student’s rights under both the federal Equal Access Act and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Floyd wrote in a letter to the school.

The Madera South club’s founder, Jorge Mendoza, 17, said he sought Floyd’s help dealing with school officials. Mendoza said school officials initially didn’t allow him to post fliers or make club announcements over the school loudspeaker while the club was waiting to gain its official status, although other unofficial school groups were allowed to do so.

Madera Unified School District Superintendent Ed Gonzalez didn’t respond to questions about those allegations, but did confirm the club was approved by the district’s school board this month.

The Madera club is now one of more than 830 Students for Life of America clubs in high schools and colleges across the nation, including several in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Gonzalez said another planned Students for Life club on Madera High School’s campus will also be approved after the group completes its application process. Mendoza, the Madera South club founder, said he anticipates the Madera High club will be operating no later than the start of the 2015-16 school year.

The decision to start the Madera clubs is personal for Mendoza.

He said before winter break, two girls at his school confided in him that they were pregnant. Returning from winter break, he learned one had an abortion after visiting a Planned Parenthood in Madera.

Mendoza, a devout Christian, said he asked why she made that choice.

“The few words that she said, ‘I felt like I had no other choice’ — that broke me down. And I thought, ‘Of course she had another choice.’

“I just wanted them to feel and to know that there are people there to help them at any stage of their pregnancy.”

Planned Parenthood’s central San Joaquin Valley spokesman, Pedro Elias, said pregnant women who enter a Planned Parenthood are given information about all options — continuing their pregnancy and becoming a mother, adoption and abortion — even if a woman only requests information about one option.

But, he added, “Most pro-life groups believe in abstinence until heterosexual marriage and don’t support options.”

Mendoza said he and his friends gathered 200 signatures from Madera South and 137 signatures from Madera High in support of starting Students for Life clubs, although the schools only require 30 signatures to found a club.

Mendoza said more than 200 students attended Madera South’s first Students for Life meeting and that the club is working to organize a rally and march this summer in Madera.

Madera school officials weren’t adamantly against a Students for Life club, said the Thomas More Society’s Floyd, although they raised common concerns that the club might be too controversial or political.

Floyd said that apprehension is not adequate to deny the founding of a school club. Legally, she said a club could only be denied if administrators decided it would cause a “substantial disruption” to learning.

“So if you had a club that was advocating violence, schools would be able to point to specifics and show a substantial disruption,” Floyd said.

But a prediction that there could be protesters opposed to the pro-life club, for example, would not meet that “substantial disruption” threshold, she said.

Floyd said she has heard many arguments against pro-life clubs in high schools.

“The best one they (another school) gave was, ‘You’re a high school sophomore and there are people far more qualified to speak on this issue.’”

Floyd’s counter: “I’m sorry, but there’s a better person to speak on every issue than a high school sophomore. The response should not be censorship.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2015 at 4:51 PM with the headline "Pro-life high school club founded in Madera."