A federal judge has ordered a California school district to give Good News Clubs the same access to its campuses as other after-school programs. The ruling came after years of denials that had blocked the Christian clubs from operating on school grounds.
U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. granted a preliminary injunction requiring the Oakland Unified School District to allow the Child Evangelism Fellowship’s Good News Clubs to use school facilities on an equal basis with nonreligious groups, according to Liberty Counsel.
The injunction is the first legal step in a case that could secure permanent access for the clubs, according to the group.
The lawsuit was filed in December 2024 by Liberty Counsel on behalf of CEF NorCal East Bay after the district refused applications for club meetings across four campuses.
The denials were based on what the plaintiffs described as discriminatory reasoning, including references to the group’s religious character and silence from administrators over a two-year period.
In his order, Judge Gilliam wrote that “the law and facts clearly favor” the claim that the district had violated free speech protections. He rejected the argument that allowing Good News Clubs to meet on campuses would breach the Establishment Clause, pointing to U.S. Supreme Court precedent that schools cannot exclude religious clubs if they provide access to secular groups.
The ruling means Good News Clubs will be able to hold weekly meetings on the same terms as activities such as Girls on the Run and Berkeley Chess School, which operate in the district’s schools.
The clubs are held after classes, are not sponsored by schools, and require parental consent for participation.
Before the pandemic, CEF NorCal East Bay had regularly hosted Good News Clubs on district campuses. All clubs were cancelled in the spring of 2020 as part of COVID-19 lockdown measures. When the fellowship sought to resume activities in 2023, the district responded with repeated denials.
In some cases, officials wrote that the clubs were not a “good match” and that “we are not in support of Evangelism on our campus.” The district also denied applications by citing a lack of space even when rooms were listed as available, and declined to process a “community partnership” application because of the group’s religious programming.
In 2001, the Supreme Court held in Good News Club v. Milford Central School that public schools cannot bar Christian clubs from meeting on the same terms as secular ones when they have opened facilities to outside groups.
Liberty Counsel argued that the Oakland district’s actions were a direct violation of that precedent.
CEF, founded in 1937, is an international Christian nonprofit serving children and families. Its Good News Clubs are typically led by trained volunteers, meet once a week immediately after classes and provide lessons, activities, and character development rooted in Christian teaching.
Liberty Counsel has represented CEF in numerous legal cases across the United States and has never lost a case concerning Good News Clubs.
Last July, a federal court ordered the Hawaii Department of Education and six individual elementary schools to allow Good News Clubs to operate on public school campuses just like any other club. The directive came months after CEF sued education officials for blocking their student clubs from operating in four local school districts.
