IU offers domestic partner benefits

The first thing that passed through Bob Eno's mind after the Trustee's meeting Friday was a sense of great satisfaction. Eno, an East Asian Languages and Culture professor and president of the Bloomington Faculty Council, has been a member of IU's Working Group on Domestic Partner Benefits since May. For the past three and a half months, he has been working on a proposal to convince the IU board of trustees to offer the same benefits married couples receive to couples of the same sex who live together. \nOn Friday, it worked. \nThe board of trustees voted unanimously to offer domestic partner benefits to University employees. The new plan will provide health and life insurance, bereavement leave, and access to University facilities to registered domestic partners. According to a report given by an IU working group on Domestic Partner Benefits, roughly 53 employees will be able to claim domestic partner health benefits. \n"The great thing about this was that it wasn't just the board of trustees that reached a consensus," said Eno. "This was a very long process, and over the years we've reached a growing consensus, throughout the faculty ranks, so it was really the entire university that reached a consensus on this issue."\nEno added that while he has friends who will be affected by the benefits change, it's the principle of non-discrimination that is important to him.\n"It's very important that we extend that -- that we don't discriminate between people of different races, and extend that to people with same-sex partners," said Eno. \nDomestic Partner Benefits first became an issue for the board of trustees in 1994, when a University faculty member's partner became terminally ill. At that time, only one board member voted to pass the resolution. Steve Sanders, who was chairperson of the group working on this year's resolution, said that a lot has changed since then. \n"I feel that this was something IU needed to do to join the mainstream, and as someone who's been here for 20 years, and who is very loyal to the University, I'm very glad to see that this has passed," said Sanders.\nSanders said that the issue was important to him on a personal level as well. \n"I know people who have been affected by the lack of domestic partner benefits," Sanders said. "I know one person who's partner has had a very serious health condition. She's a very loyal IU employee, and her partner has thousands of dollars in medical expenses, yet there's someone down the hall who's married and has health coverage that she does not have." \nIU President Myles Brand cited faculty departures and lost recruitment opportunities as reasons to offer the benefits.\n"We are at a distinct competitive disadvantage without this provision for our employees," said Brand. "In a global market that places a premium on talent, we must be on equal footing with our peers if we hope to succeed."\nBrand also said that fundamental fairness dictated the need to make changes to the benefits policy. \nGraduate student Jason Jones, president of OUT, was also part of the working group. Jones said he thinks IU's decision will lead the way for other universities.\n"I think it will open the door for other universities to offer domestic partner benefits as far as setting a precedent goes," said Jones. "But I also think it will attract the faculty and staff we're looking for. When you look at the private companies that offer DP benefits, it doesn't hurt the way they work, it helps it."\nThe report, compiled by the working group, stresses that benefits can be offered to domestic partners at minimal cost to the University. Based on the experience of other Big Ten universities, IU officials estimate that the new benefits will add about one-third of 1 percent to the university's overall annual health insurance expenses, which are now budgeted at $61 million. The University of Iowa, the only Big Ten university that offers benefits to both same and opposite sex partners, has reportedly added only .15 percent to their health insurance expenses. \nMore than 150 colleges across the country offer domestic partner benefits, as well as many Indiana businesses such as Cummins, Bank One and Gannett. IU will be the fifth Big Ten University to offer these benefits.