California Judge Rules Expulsion by Private Schools Based on Sexual Orientation is Legal

by Robin Menikoff January 28, 2009

In October 2005, two female students at California Lutherian High School were expelled after the school's principal, Gregory Bork, concluded that they were gay.

A month earlier, another student at the school told Bork that he should look at the students' MySpace pages. Bork looked at the pages, and he found that one girl identified herself as bisexual, and the other expressed uncertainty about her sexual orientation. Bork subsequently met with each of the girls separately in an attempt to determine whether they were gay.

As for what occurred during those meetings, Bork claimed that each girl said she often kissed and hugged the other, and that they had told friends they were lesbians. The girls, however, said that what they told him was that they loved each other as friends.

The students filed a lawsuit against the school and this Monday, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino ruled in favor of the school, citing a 1998 State Supreme Court ruling that the Boy Scouts of America could discriminate based upon sexual orientation.

California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, passed in 1959 and revised in 1997, prohibits businesses from refusing service to individuals based on their sexual orientation. In her ruling on Jane Doe vs. California Lutheran, Justice Betty Richli said that the students' rights were not protected because the school is not a business.

Tags: Lesbian , Sexual Orientation , Gay , Discrimination , Jane Doe Vs. California L , California Lutheran , California Lutheran High , San Bernardino , Unruh