Reagan Signs into Law the Equal Access Bill

President Reagan signed into law yesterday a bill prohibiting public high schools from banning gatherings of students for religious or political purpose outside of class hours but on school premises, a measure widely protested by Jewish organizations and one of dubious constitutionality.

The measure, popularly dubbed the “freedom of access” law, was one of a legislative package the President accused the Democrats of “bottling up” in Congress as he signed it as his Santa Barbara home.

In his regular weekly radio broadcast, paid for by his re-election campaign, he said the new law “will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they have too long been denied, the freedom to meet in public high schools during non-school hours, just as other student groups are allowed to do.

The signing took place amidst reports that some Reagan Administration lawyers felt its language would permit schools to allow use of their buildings by religious cults and extremist groups, a waming issued repeatedly by major Jewish organizations during the measure’s convuluted journey through the Republican-controlled Senate and then an initial defeat and subsequent approval by the Democratic-controlled House just before adjournment for the election campaign.

ANOTHER PROBLEM CITED

Still another problem, because of assured constitutional challenges, experts said it was doubtful that the new law would meet its central purpose of allowing students groups to conduct prayer sessions on school premises, regardless of stated non-interference with regular school hours.

Four federal appeals courts and state appellate courts in New York and California have barred a variety of religious activities by student groups in public schools, declaring they were barred by the First Amendment on church-state separation.

The prospect, feared by Jewish organizations and pleasing to civil libertarians, that the bill would make room for cults and extremist political groups, reportedly was not precisely what the President and other supporters of school prayer had set out to achieve.

To get the proposal through Congress, conservative backers had to accept amendments bracketing religious observance with “political, philosophical or other” forms of speech and protecting all of them.

Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, lauded the new law for the same reasons Jewish leaders feared it. He called it “the best empowerment of teen-agers” imaginable. He said Americans should understand that the new law means that “15-year-olds have some decisions to make that adults cannot interfere with. It means that young Trotskyites can meet” in public schools, “it means that gay rights activists can meet.” He sardonically expressed surprise “at some of my allies.”