Equality: worth the risk?

When sophomore Aaron Malin, Senate student affairs chair, found out Truman faculty members with same-sex partners weren't allowed to add their partners to their insurance plans, he felt there needed to be a change.

He decided to draft a senate resolution to support changing this policy to allow same-sex partners to buy insurance through the University just as straight couples can.

He started researching other Missouri schools that passed similar resolutions, and he found they used the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation' in the non-discrimination policies of their governing boards to build a case for same-sex partner benefits.

But there was one problem: Truman's Board of Governors non-discrimination policy does not explicitly include sexual orientation. He thought that necessitated a second resolution to add ‘sexual orientation' to the list.  

Partner benefits at Truman

Last semester, Faculty Senate discussed the possibility of finding a way for Truman's same-sex couples to buy health insurance through their partners.

"Faculty Senate met with [University] President [Troy] Paino, and Paino said, ‘Well, let me look into this and let me see what I can do,'" Faculty Senate president John Bohac said. "It was his idea that perhaps if we divested same-sex partner designation from all of this and if we didn't attach it to any particular relationship that maybe the insurance company and the University could negotiate a means for any employee to be able to add someone to their health care benefits program."

Administration wanted to avoid creating a policy with wording that could cause controversy because there was concern that Missouri's predominantly conservative legislature would have a negative reaction, possibly in the form of budget cuts.

Paino said he worried it would be risky for Truman to take a stance on a controversial topic when funding is already tight.

Faculty Senate drafted a plan without potentially controversial language and named it the ‘plus-one program.' Before it came up for vote in Faculty Senate last spring, Student Senate passed a resolution supporting the plus-one program, but it later was vetoed by senior Isaac Robinson, former president of the Student Association.  

Junior Ryan Nely, current president of the Student Association, said it was vetoed because the program hadn't been fully developed so it was impossible for Student Senate to make a well-reasoned decision about it.

Later, Faculty Senate tabled the topic, and it never came to a full vote.

After exploring the options of offering benefits to same-sex partners, the University has decided not to move ahead with the benefits, said Sally Detweiler, Human Resources Executive Director at Truman.

"My understanding of it that it's not necessarily a cost issue," she said. "We have benefits consultants that work with us on our benefit packages. It's probably more of an issue with how the state defines married couples. At this point, unless something within the state political realm changes it's not something we're going to pursue right now."

Malin, who brought both resolutions to senate for first read last Sunday, said he was shocked when he found out the University's policy did not include benefits for same-sex couples.

"I didn't know we didn't have it – I thought that was kind of a given," Malin said. "I found that when I go out and talk to random students or people I know and say ‘Hey what do you think about this idea?' their response has been unanimously, ‘We don't already have that?' So people don't understand that we don't have this already they just kind of take it for granted that we already do."

He said the goal of the resolution is to move the conversation forward.

The Missouri legislature

Missouri is a state with a conservative legislature and a constituency that voted in 2004 to define marriage between a man and a woman.

Currently, no public universities in the state offer same-sex partner benefits. It could be a political risk to be the first public university in Missouri to extend benefits to same-sex couples, President Paino said.

"Some would argue that this is not a time to make the University more vulnerable than it already is," he said.

After two years of budget cuts and no indication that the economy is improving, he said, it's not a good time for Truman to stand alone on the controversial issue of domestic partner benefits and risk deeper budget cuts if general assembly members oppose same-sex relationships.

"We are a public university, and therefore you certainly have to be sensitive to politics in the state, and I would describe the legislature right now in the House and the Senate as being fairly conservative," Paino said.