PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that Portland Public Schools didn’t discriminate against atheist students by allowing the Boy Scouts to recruit during school hours.
Even though the Boy Scouts require a belief in God to become a member, the court ruled that no discrimination took place at school because neither the recruiter nor the Scout material distributed during lunchtime to elementary school boys mentioned religion.
“It is in the later enrollment in the organization that the Boy Scouts differentiate among those who do not profess a belief in a deity and those who do,” Justice W. Michael Gillette wrote in an opinion issued Sept. 8. “That enrollment, however, is not done by the school district.” The 6–1 opinion reversed the Oregon Court of Appeals, which last year held that the school district had contributed to discrimination by allowing the Boy Scouts to recruit during school hours in 1996 at Harvey Scott Elementary School.
The mother of a first-grader, Remington Powell, sued because the Scouts don’t allow atheists to join. The high court, however, said the school district isn’t responsible for that policy.
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