Secular Student Alliance now available in high schools

COLUMBUS, Ohio — High school kids can join the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Jewish Student Union, the Muslim Students Association and, in some schools, a Hindu or a Buddhist club. Now they can join the young atheists club too.

In another sign of the emergence of nonbelievers in American society, the Secular Student Alliance, a national organization of more than 300 college-based clubs for atheists, humanists, agnostics and other “freethinkers,” is helping to establish clubs for high school students to hang out with other teens who share their skepticism about the supernatural.

There were about a dozen such clubs at the beginning of the 2011–2012 academic school year, a figure that rose to 39 in 17 states by summer break. The clubs are student-led.