Group urges University trustees to oppose Prop. 8

A new student organization, Equality Action Network (EAN), is seeking to employ a USG referendum to persuade the University’s Board of Trustees to sign a statement against California’s Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry.

The proposed referendum “states that the undergraduates of Princeton University support equal protection under the law for homosexual partners vis-a-vis the recognition of homosexual marriages” and requests that the Board of Trustees file an amicus brief with the California Supreme Court in support of overturning the proposition, according to an e-mail from founder Jacob Candelaria ’09 announcing the group’s formation.

Two hundred undergraduate signatures are required for the referendum to be placed on the ballot for the upcoming USG election. Candelaria said in an interview that he does not foresee any difficulty in obtaining the necessary number of signatures.

Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of votes cast in favor and amended the California state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The California Supreme Court has agreed to review challenges to the proposition. Chief Justice Ronald George ’61 handed down the original decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the state that prompted opponents of gay marriage to push for the ballot measure.

At an organizational meeting in the USG office last Tuesday, Candelaria and six other students discussed their goals and plans.

“What we’re asking of the University is that if the student population makes a strong statement of its belief in the equality of all people under law, that the University act on our behalf and uses its resources and political capital and make a statement to the country,” Candelaria said.

Some at the meeting pointed out that Princeton is not known for being the first to step forward.

“From what we can tell, this is largely uncharted territory,” Candelaria said in response. “I’m all for being the first; I’m all for being the first who chart new ground. I think this is an issue that requires us to do that.”

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Others at the meeting also questioned how different this effort is from a 2005 student referendum that required the USG to sign on to an amicus brief supporting gay marriage in New Jersey in 2005.

That referendum passed by a slim margin, and some students at the meeting said they feared there is little hope for EAN’s referendum passing.

“This is a different moment than 2005,” Candelaria said, pointing out that the need for such an amicus brief is more pressing than it was before.

Referencing the Amethyst Initiative, one student pointed out that though President Tilghman said she agreed with the initiative, she chose not to sign on to it as a matter of University policy. The initiative seeks to raise debate about the current legal drinking age and has support from a number of universities, including Duke and Dartmouth.

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Tilghman said in an e-mail that it would be atypical for the Board of Trustees to sign an amicus brief on the matter of gay marriage.

“As to the University supporting the reversal of Proposition 8, it is not customary for the University to take a public position on any issue that is not directly related to our mission as an educational institution,” she explained.

At the meeting, Candelaria acknowledged that it was possible the University would not agree to sign on if the referendum passes.

“If the students make a statement, and the University refuses to act on this, we will continue to act on our own regard,” he said. “We’d just like the University to join us in our efforts.”

Citing corporations like Google that have come out against Proposition 8 as a matter of human rights, Candelaria said that the University is obligated to do the same.

“If Princeton wants to live up to its stated goal of being in the service of people and the country, then being in service means sometimes pointing out what’s going wrong and [being] the first to stand up and say something’s going wrong,” Candelaria said.

College Republicans president Andrew Malcolm ’09 said that the University should remain uninvolved in such a controversial matter.

“I think that the University/Board of Trustees should stay out of political issues,” he said in an e-mail. “The University is a place for free thought and debate, and what does it say to people on the other side of an issue if the University takes an official stance?”

Malcolm also expressed concern that a staff member at the Wilson School’s undergraduate office forwarded an e-mail from Candelaria advertising the first meeting of EAN to everyone on the school’s undergraduate listserv. Candelaria is a Wilson School concentrator.

“The Woodrow Wilson School has no business taking stands on partisan or political issues like this,” Malcolm said.

Wilson School officials did not respond to requests for comment.

This is the second public student-led effort to protest Proposition 8 at Princeton. The first, the Princeton Proposition 8 campaign, was an ironic demonstration against freshmen using sidewalks.

Malcolm added that he did not agree with the Princeton Proposition 8 protest on campus, explaining that he felt it was misguided.

“Marriage is a serious issue which many care deeply about,” he said. “They should not cheapen the debate by trying to keep freshmen off the sidewalks. Furthermore, I don’t understand why they weren’t protesting or campaigning before the election. The people of California have spoken, so I don’t see what they hope to accomplish now.”

Candelaria said that the short-run goal of EAN is to mobilize students to address what he described as “the pressing question of civil rights of our generation.”

“This is student activism at its best,” he said.