The State College Area School District (SCASD) offers a number of extracurricular activities for its students, including sports, tennis, football, basketball, volleyball and so much more. With over 6,000 students enrolled in SCASD, competition for spaces in this program can be high.  It may become even more difficult for SCASD students to enroll in these programs in the future.  

SCASD is being taken to court by the Religious Rights Foundation of Pennsylvania (RRFP), who accuse SCASD of discriminating against their children by not allowing them to participate in SCASD-sponsored extracurricular activities. The RRFP is a Centre County based religious advocacy group, whose members live in the district's boundaries and are parents of students at two parochial schools. Parochial schools are schools supported by a church or parish. The parents filed a lawsuit in July of 2023, and SCASD requested the lawsuit be dismissed. However, Chief U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew Brann refused to grant that request. Instead, Brann found that denying access to extracurricular activities was a violation of their (the families’) constitutional rights. 

SCASD allows students who are homeschooled and from charter schools to participate in their extracurricular activities. So the RRFP sent an email to the SCASD superintendent, requesting for their children to also be able to participate in the school's extracurricular activities. An email responding to this read, “After carefully considering it, we cannot grant your request to change our longstanding practice of not having private school students participate on our PIAA sports teams,” the email read. PIAA stands for Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. “The reason is that the district has ample, and sometimes excess, participation for our teams, so there is no need to expand. Additionally, if we allow private school students to take part, we could be taking away opportunities from SCASD students.”

 According to the Centre Daily Times, Brann writes in his 25 page ruling, that allowing homeschooled and charter school students who live in the district access to extracurriculars, but not those who are in parochial schools would be in violation of the First Amendment's free exercise clause and the 14th Amendment's equal protection law. Brann also wrote that if SCASD had strict policies on who could join their over 100 extracurricular activities, then they would not have allowed those who are homeschooled or in charter schools to join them. 

“However, the board has consistently allowed home-school students and those attending charter schools to take part in the district’s more than 100 extracurricular activities and classes, including athletic teams and Advanced Placement courses,”  RRFP attorney Tom Breth,  said in a statement.

The judge then cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s repeated confirmations “that denying a generally available benefit solely on account of religious identity imposes a penalty on the free exercises of religion.”  

The district argued that the policy did not cause plaintiffs to choose between their religious beliefs and extracurricular activities and that refusing participation did not meet the standards of being unconstitutional.

However, Brann stated that the laws the district is basing its decision on are outdated or unhelpful for the justification of dismissing the case. “Whether it is a homeschooled, charter-schooled or parochially-schooled student, any non-enrolled student’s participation in extracurricular activities equally undermines the stated aims of preventing excess participation and allowing spots for enrolled students,” Brann added.

 Breth said, according to the Centre Daily Times, “We were pleased with the court’s legal analysis. We felt that most recent Supreme Court cases on these issues support the plaintiff’s position, supporting the fact that we believe the State College School District has acted in a discriminatory manner.”

"The Supreme Court has made it clear that such denials can be justified only by a state interest of the highest order," Breth said. "That is certainly not the case in the State College Area School District." 

This is not the first time school districts in the United States have denied students from different schools to participate in extracurricular activities. In all cases where this was challenged in the courts by parents, the district has lost. Since the request to dismiss the SCASD-RRFP case was declined, the court case will now move forward.

Works Cited

Brown, Jon. “Judge denies motion to dismiss lawsuit against PA school district | Education News.” The Christian Post, 7 December 2023, https://www.christianpost.com/news/judge-denies-motion-to-dismiss-lawsuit-against-pa-school-district.html. Accessed 19 December 2023.

Doll, Keely. “Religious rights advocacy group files lawsuit against SCASD.” Centre Daily Times, 14 July 2023, https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/community/state-college/article277324948.html. Accessed 19 December 2023.

Jones, Ben, and Geoff Rushton. “Judge Rejects SCASD Request to Dismiss Lawsuit over Parochial School Student Participation in Extracurricular Activities.” StateCollege.com, 4 December 2023, https://www.statecollege.com/articles/local-news/judge-rejects-scasd-request-to-dismiss-lawsuit-over-parochial-school-student-participation-in-extracurricular-activities/. Accessed 19 December 2023.

“State College school district faces discrimination lawsuit | News, Sports, Jobs.” Williamsport Sun-Gazette, 7 December 2023, https://www.sungazette.com/news/top-news/2023/12/state-college-school-district-faces-discrimination-lawsuit/. Accessed 19 December 2023.