After Obergefell: The End of the Kulturekampf in U.S. Public Schools?

• In Event: Educational Leadership After Obergefell v. Hodges

Abstract

In Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that queers have a fundamental right to marry. The ruling has immediate implications for public schools in the areas of personnel policy, student policy, curricula and extra curricular activities. Obergefell has the potential to restructure the public school in ways not seen since the era of massive desegregation. Drawn from a larger historical project (Author A, under review) that employs both Queer Theory and Queer Legal Theory for both methodology and analysis (Author A, under review; Author A; 1996; Author A & B, 2014; Butler, 1993; Halberstam, 2005; Hutchinson, 2001; Mayo, 2007; Seidman, 2010; Tierney & Dilley, 1998; Turner, 2000; Valdes, 1998; Valdes, 1995), this paper explores what a post-Obergefell public school might look like for queer students.

Since the 1990s, the U.S. public school has been the only governmental site that appears to be somewhat impervious to the legal and political changes that have benefited queer adult Americans. We have growing survey data that underscores the hostility queer youth confront in their public schools: 3 out of 4 queer youth were verbally harassed and one third of queer youth were physically harassed in their public school. Furthermore, over half of the queer students surveyed heard homophobic remarks by their teachers. While having a GSA in one’s public school can help, only 10 percent of U.S. high schools have one (see Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer & Bosen, 2015). Since the late 1990s, GLSEN has tracked these data, and while things might be improving in a few locales, the larger trend remains as depressing as it is violent (Signorile, 2015).

A major reason that U.S. public schools are more resistant to queer identity and information is the ongoing political war—or Kulturekampf—on queer children. The notoriously homophobic political writer Patrick Buchanan injected this term into the political arena during his 1992 address at the Republican National Convention (Eskridge, 1999; 2000). Furthermore, for over 20 years the political right has consistently attacked public schools for supposedly promoting homosexuality, and by extension, the queer children within. Hence, since the 1990s, we have seen: (1) the rise of “no promo homo” laws and policies (the banning the supposed promotion of homosexuality in public schools); (2) the continued harassment of GSAs including requiring parental permission to join (which forces queer kids to come out to hostile parents); (3) bans on pro-gay student speech; and (4) epidemic rates of violence and harassment of queer students by other students, as well as by teachers and administrators (Author A, under review).

Finally, American adults can vote for their representatives, including viciously homophobic and transphobic adults, who can and do vote to support educational policy that demonizes queers, and perhaps especially, queer children (Author A, under review). Educational policy is the very last venue where one can vote one’s homophobic preferences. Consequently, while Obergefell opens the door to better conditions for queer students, we will continue to see queer-hostile public school politics and policies. These will not change without extensive and aggressive litigation.

Authors

• Catherine A. Lugg, Rutgers University

• Jason Murphy, Rutgers University