Z.J.W. v. King George County School Board

The ACLU of Virginia and Potomac Law Group filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two students who were denied the opportunity to form a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at King George Middle School (KGMS) even as other noncurricular student groups were allowed to operate.

Students at KGMS followed the official process to start a student club during the 2025-2026 school year, so the King George County School Board proposed new rules to make it harder to form a club as a way to block the GSA. After the ACLU of Virginia sent a letter to the school board warning that such a policy would violate federal law, the school board adopted a new policy banning all “noncurricular organizations” from forming at the middle school level – effectively barring the GSA from KGMS.

Yet despite the policy’s passage, King George County Schools have continued to allow multiple noncurricular student groups to operate at the middle school level, including an outdoor club that has students making fishing lures and skinning squirrels. In fact, KGMS has attempted to define “curricular” to encompass every single club but the GSA club.

The First Amendment and Equal Access Act protect all students, and the school board cannot pick and choose who the rules apply to. However, King George County Schools appears to be applying a double standard to the GSA at its middle schools.

Z.J.W. v. King George School Board was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and asks the court to issue forthcoming preliminary and permanent injunctions requiring the district to allow the GSA to form and operate on the same terms as other student organizations, as well as to prohibit the district from enforcing club policies that discriminate against student groups based on their viewpoint or retaliating against anyone who supported the GSA club.