Rapid City School District Responds to Pro-Life Lawsuit

According to LifeNews.com, the Rapid City Area School District has issued a response to the lawsuit filed by Citizens for Life of Rapid City.

Citizens for Life filed a lawsuit for equal access to use school facilities after school hours after they were denied permission to use the Dakota Middle School facility for a pro-life function because the event was "too controversial."

Now the school district says they never received a request:

The district denies the allegations and said it had not received a recent request from the pro-life group to use its facilities despite a complaint the request was denied.

According to the complaint, Citizens for Life president Al Carlson phoned the school in July 2006 to request permission to use the facility in September. The secretary told him she would talk to the principal and the principal would contact him.

When he didn't hear anything, Carlson contacted the school in late August and was told by the principal that Citizens for Life would not be able to use the facility, no reason given.

Carlson subsequently contacted the Alliance Defense Fund and spoke to attorney Delia van Loenen who made several attempts to obtain records from the school regarding the request, but without success.

On June 21, 2007, Carlson wrote a letter to the school for permission to use the facility for a different event. Carlson was again denied permission, and the reason given by Ronald Mincks, Assistant Building and Grounds Supervisor, was, "We just don't like to encourage discussion of those types of issues in our facilities." He also said any event held by Citizens for Life would be considered "too controversial."

Theoretically, if the facility would be open to some groups, it would be open to all groups, without the district taking a political stance and calling a particular view "too controversial."

Most interesting about this latest information is that the district's assertion that they never received a request would appear to directly contradict the claims in the complaint.

I guess we'll get a better picture of the truth after the April 14 hearing.