In 2025, Texas passed a law explicitly banning clubs based on gender identity or expression, such as L.G.B.T.Q. clubs or gender and sexuality alliances, in K-12 schools. On February 20, 2026, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas temporarily blocked three public school districts—Houston, Katy and Plano, the three school districts named as defendants in the suit—from enforcing the state law that banned student clubs based on gender identity during the pendency of this litigation. Judge Eskridge’s opinion in Gay Student Alliance v. Morath noted that school districts “remain obligated to comply first and foremost with federal law, even when doing so requires disregarding contrary state directives.”
The Center for Law & Religious Freedom had much to do with the drafting and passage of the Equal Access Act of 1984; therefore, even though CLS may not agree with the message in the student group’s meetings, the Center had filed an amicus brief in support of the Gay Student Alliance Network arguing that the new Texas law violates the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act.
