David Kirp on Schools as Part of the Proposition 8 Debate

David Kirp, Professor of Public Policy and Visiting Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, was quoted in the New York Times article on Sunday November 2nd, discussing the anti-gay marriage initiative (Proposition 8), on this fall's California ballot (read the feature by Jesse MicKinley in the Week in Review).

The Proposition would strip same sex couples of the right to marry currently (since the California Supreme Court ruled in May) protected by the sate's constitution through an amendment that would define marriage constitutionally as being between a "man and a woman." Yet considerable advertising attention by both sides has focused on whether schools would end up teaching about gay marriage. A noted author on education policy, Kirp noted that this focus was hardly accidental:

“Schools are still there as part of the story because whatever their politics, families are conservative when it comes to their kids,” said David L. Kirp, a professor of law and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “No family regards their kids as a social experiment.”