A Virginia school board bent over backward to block an LGBTQ+ club. One mom explains why she’s suing

Susan Park’s child has already advanced from King George Middle School, about an hour and 20 minutes southeast of Washington, D.C. The eighth-grade year in which he hoped to join a gay-straight alliance, make friends and find some relief from bullying is over. That time cannot be returned to him. When school starts, he will enter King George High School.Park could have allowed the dispute over the club to become another family’s problem. Instead, on Tuesday, she, along with the family of another student, filed a federal lawsuit so that the next LGBTQ+ student in this rural Virginia county might receive what her child was denied.“I joined this suit because even though my kid has moved on and is not in middle school anymore, I think this club would be a wonderful thing,” Park told The Advocate in an interview Wednesday. “I want them to be able to form this club and create that community.”The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and Potomac Law Group filed the lawsuit Tuesday against the King George County School Board, Superintendent Jesse Boyd and King George Middle School Principal Casey Nice. It alleges that officials repeatedly changed the rules to prevent students from forming the GSA while allowing other organizations to continue operating.The students are asking a federal judge to order the school district to treat their club like the others.The 17-page complaint accuses King George officials of violating the First Amendment and the federal Equal Access Act, which requires covered public schools that allow noncurricular student groups to provide them access without discriminating based on their messages.For Park, the dispute is about what happens when adults transform children’s search for friendship into a political controversy.“Seventh grade was really tough for my kid,” she said.When information about the proposed GSA appeared on the middle school’s Canvas platform last September, her child, identified in court records as A.A.P., sa