SchoolFinder Blog

South Carolina Principal Resigns Over Gay Club

Lately, the state of South Carolina is getting a ton of media attention for school related news. Earlier this month, an SC middle school made headlines after eight students were suspended for having sex on a school field trip. This week, South Carolina is also making the RSS news rounds after a high school principal decided to resign over the formation of a gay student club.

Here’s the details; the school in controversy is Irmo High School in Columbia South Carolina. It’s a public school with close to 1900 students. Irmo High School is part of the Lexington County School District. The school has performed well above the state average on test scores.

Eddie Walker is the school principal since 2005. His decision to resign was the result of Gay-Straight Alliance club being established on campus. Walker opposes the club for professional and religious reasons. And realizing that any effort to symie the club would lead to legal action, Walker chose to resign NEXT June. The story has been picked up by CNN and Foxnews. And Perez Hilton.

Here’s a link to the complete resignation letter penned (or typed!) by principal Walker. The words “professional” and “religious” are repeated ad nauseum. Here’s a quote:

The formation of this club conflicts with my professional  beliefs in that we do not have other clubs at Irmo High school based on sexual orientation, sexual preference, or sexual activity.  In fact our sex education curriculum is abstinence based. I feel the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance Club at Irmo High school implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes.

According to the Gay Straight Alliance, there are more than 2.5 million gay students under the age of 18 in the USA alone and more than 4 million in the European Union!

Faith in America, with their goal being the emancipation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from bigotry disguised as religious truth, has issued the following statement on their blog to address this matter.

The Lexington School district issued a statement saying that:

“The federal law known as the Equal Access Act does not permit the school to discriminate against a club based on the club’s purpose and viewpoint by not allowing it to form unless the purpose of the club is unlawful.”

And that:

“Attorneys have advised the school district that prohibiting the formation of this club would most certainly result in a costly lawsuit. “

According to the Irmo High School website, Principal Eddie Walker is developing Irmo’s diversity into its greatest strength.

Say what?!

The school

The Principal