Sexual Orientation and School Policy: A Practical Guide for Teachers, Administrators, and Community Activists (Curriculum, Cultures, and (Homo)Sexualities)

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Summary: Teachers College Record Online Review
Review: This book, based on the author's doctoral research, is an attempt to present a discussion of political possibilities for creating safe spaces and equal treatment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersexed, and queer/questioning students - GLBTIQ to use the author's accurate but unwieldy acronym. This book functions on several levels. First of all, as the title describes, it is an experiential and practical guide to the problematic and politicized situation when educators attempt to create schools not only free of anti-gay violence, but schools where GLBTIQ students are valued equally with heterosexual students. To do this, the book centers on a case study of a school system called the High Plains School District and its struggle to formally add gay and lesbian students to the district's non-discrimination policy. Based on this case study, the book also offers strategies for educators and local communities to learn how to become active and network for more protection for GLBTIQ students. The book also functions as a primer for related theories, terms, court decisions, and the general background of inclusion in schools.

In Part I of the book, the author tells the story of the High Plains School District and the formation of the Safe Schools Coalition. This involved an acrimonious battle between the pro-gay Coalition and a group of social and religious conservatives called Concerned Citizens. Perhaps because the author was so involved in his doctoral research in this extremely contentious battle, I found myself disoriented about the details of the policy changes proposed, and the ebb and flow of the year-long proceedings. Nevertheless, the lines of opposition are clearly drawn and Macgillivray promotes this as a template for possibilities of political and social action in other school districts. The High Plains experience, he argues, can be used as a template not only to create safe schools, but to further change the hearts and minds of students, teachers, administrators and communities.

In Part II of the book, Macgillivray presents a much needed investigation into the root causes of social and religious conservatives' resistance to full and open acceptance of GLBTIQ students. The author attempts to be fair and understanding of conservatives who sincerely seem to want to stop the abuse of GLBTIQ students and who claim that they want all students treated with respect, but who do not want schools to "promote homosexuality." Macgillivray explains that conservatives fear any open GLBTIQ discourse in schools, and he points out that conservatives' understanding of treating people "fairly" and "with respect" necessitates that GLBTIQ students are silent and accepting of a heterosexual cultural norm. Conservatives see a "slippery slope" towards full and open acceptance of what they call the "homosexual lifestyle." The author argues that conservatives reason: "If it's not okay to discriminate against someone simply because he or she is GLBTIQ, and if it's not okay to use epithets like 'queer' and 'fag' to hurt others, and if GLBTIQ students deserved the same respect accorded others, and if GLBTIQ people deserve equal rights, then it must be okay to be gay." (p. 116) Because in school districts like High Plains, gay issues are becoming part of the academic discourse and curriculum, conservatives feel that they are themselves becoming victims of discrimination, unfairly labeled bigots, whose voices are not respected or welcome in schools, and whose conservative values are increasingly banished from academic discourse.

In Macgillivray's book, GLBTIQ political activism is about more that just creating a safe space for marginalized students. Full acceptance of marginalized and abused students is very much at the expense of social conservatives (see p. 150). If the voices and experiences of GLBTIQ people are brought into education, if gay and lesbian authors are actively taught, if queer and questioning students can freely discuss their sexuality and personhood, then this is at the expense of the conservative cultural norm. Early on in the book, in describing the political activation of the Safe School Coalition, the author notes that this is, in all reality, a battle which will have winners and losers. The Coalition, he states, "came up with many creative ways to outwit or educate the opposition, and I wanted to share those strategies with others" (p. 9). The author maintains that "modernity is against moral conservatives," (p. 151) and the political agenda is not just the removal of bullying and harassment of GLBTIQ young people, but for the re-education of those who oppose the open voices and full acceptance of gays and other sexually marginalized students. This reeducation, called "restorative justice" (p. 69) is on a micro-level the reeducation of students who commit acts of bias or harm against GLBIIQ students, but on the macro-level, it is part of the political process not only in valuing the GLBTIQ community as much as the heterosexual one, but in superceding a conservative heterosexual hegemony which is outdated, hopelessly enamored of a fictionalized romantic past, and morally invalid.

This is heady stuff. If Macgillivray's optimism about the march of gay inclusion in academic culture is correct - and I certainly hope it is - it comes at a cost which Macgillivray seems willing to pay, and that is the continued exodus of religious and social conservatives from the typical academic culture in which readers of this review typically live, think, teach, and learn. But do those of us in inclusive academic cultures really want social and religious conservatives alienated and off in their own schools? It's a perfectly legitimate question, particularly considering that the full and equal inclusion of GLBTIQ people in the social and political life of the United States is far from a sure thing. If school culture reflects the dominant culture, can we afford to win the inclusion battle if we have cut off conversations with social and religious conservatives? Then again, is it ever worth compromising the full inclusion of GLBTIQ people in the life of schools and schooling? Sexual orientation and school policy demonstrates that full equality for GLBTIQ students involves much more that the removal of harassment. It involves a profound philosophical and political change in the culture of schools.
Arthur Costigan
Queens College, The City University of New York