An eastern Pennsylvania school district has reached a settlement with The Satanic Temple in a lawsuit alleging discrimination against students by barring one of the group's After School Satan clubs from using a school building.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the Saucon Valley School District had agreed to pay $200,000 in attorney’s fees and to provide The Satanic Temple and the After School Satan Club it sponsors the same access to school facilities as is provided to other organizations.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in March after the district rescinded its earlier approval to allow the club to meet following criticism. The After School Satan Club, with the motto “Educatin’ with Satan,” had drawn protests and even a threat in February that prompted closure of district schools for a day and the later arrest of a person in another state.

Saucon Valley school district attorney Mark Fitzgerald told reporters in a statement that the district denies having discriminated against The Satanic Temple, its club or “the approximately four students” who attended its meetings. He said the district’s priorities were education and the safety of students and staff.

  • jago
    94•1 year ago

    Why would you assume anything? The answer is provided in the article itself. Why can so few people be arsed to read the information provided before leaping to an attempt at pithy commentary?

    The group … views Satan not as a supernatural being but as “a literary figure that represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny over the human mind and spirit.” The club’s programs, they say, focus on “science, critical thinking, creative arts, and good works for the community.”

    (Boldface mine. “science” comes to us from Latin’s “scientia”: knowledge)

    The irony of assuming something instead of learning/confirming it from the information provided, as regards an article about an organization whose stated focus is on knowledge and critical thinking, is disappointing.

    • @[email protected]
      7•1 year ago

      Tbf they’re using one of the internet’s laws to their favour. I forgot the name, so I’ll do the same thing and call it Godwin’s law: when you want to know something you post an incorrect answer (or in this case not knowing the answer, they basically wrote the right answer) and someone will correct you soon enough.

      It’s lazy tbh, but it helps in case you don’t know how deep the rabbit hole is gonna be and don’t have the mental capacity or time to invest in it. This is specially relevant to people who have ADHD or other similar attention disorders.

      P.S. I did end up looking up the actual name of the law and it’s Cunningham’s law, so I corrected myself in this case.

      • @[email protected]
        10•1 year ago

        Let’s get meta! lol

        Godwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.

        Cunningham’s Law: The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, it’s to post the wrong answer.