A federal court has ordered the Hawaii State Department of Education and six individual elementary schools to allow Child Evangelism Fellowship‘s after-school Bible clubs to operate on public campuses just like any other club. The directive comes months after CEF sued education officials for blocking their student clubs from operating in four local school districts.
The preliminary injunction protects the Good News Clubs from viewpoint discrimination and compels school officials to respond promptly to facility-use applications.
The decision stems from a lawsuit filed in January, alleging that the Hawaii Department of Education and six schools had continuously denied the Good News Clubs access to school facilities over three years, citing instances of what attorneys for CEF described as “blatant religious discrimination.”
During the legal proceedings, it emerged that one school had explicitly barred the club based on its religious nature, while another rejection was attributed to a misinterpretation of school policies.
CEF of Hawaii had established Good News Clubs in over a dozen schools across Oahu and other islands before the pandemic. However, despite the restoration of after-school programs in 2022 following COVID-19 restrictions, the Department of Education, led by four superintendents and other officials, denied all requests from CEF to restart its programs.