[Ronn_Bman]

Originally reported by The Associated Press: A Freedom High School freshman has run up against opposition in her quest to start a Caucasian Club. A local NAACP leader says Lisa McClelland's proposed club, which would be open to all races and ethnicities, smacks of racial division, a charge the 15-year-old denies. McClelland says she and some of her friends simply feel a bit slighted since other school clubs cater to specific cultures and races, such as the Black Student Union and the Asian Club. "It's not racist because we're not excluding anyone, and we're just trying to solve the issues of racial disparity," McClelland said. Her ethnic background is American Indian, Latino, Dutch, German, Italian and Irish. So far McClelland has gathered 245 signatures from an array of students, adults and others on and off campus in support of the formation of her Caucasian Club. She's looking to gather additional signatures before submitting the petition to Freedom High principal Eric Volta this week. The high school has dealt with thorny racial issues in the recent past. In 2001, a black teacher found a noose made out of a shoelace hanging on the doorknob of his classroom. Tensions mounted again last year when a roped noose was found dangling from a redwood tree on campus. Darnell Turner, vice president of the East County chapter of the NAACP, spoke out against the 2002 incident and says McClelland's Caucasian Club sounds like a bad idea at a time when the campus is trying to heal fresh emotional wounds. "It will not allow us to heal that divide that we've tried to overcome in the past couple of years," Turner said. "If her motivation is to bring harmony, as she alleges, this is not the way to go." Some of McClelland's classmates, however, support her effort. "It'd be tight because they can learn more about their history," said 14-year-old Tyleisha Crooks, a fellow freshman at Freedom who is black. Elliott Perez, 14, a sophomore at Freedom who is Hispanic and white, also said the school could benefit from McClelland's club. "I think it's fair for white people to have their own club, because every other race has their own club," he said. Both Crooks and Perez signed the petition in support of the formation of the Caucasian Club. Oakley is located about 50 miles east of San Francisco.