“The agreement that the university and the AAUP have reached avoided a strike and ended months of tense negotiations. What we’re most impressed about with the agreement, however, isn’t the salary increases. It’s the same-sex domestic partner coverage. The agreement also adds gender identity as a protected classification under a non-discrimination clause.”
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The agreement that the university and the AAUP have reached avoided a strike and ended months of tense negotiations.

What we’re most impressed about with the agreement, however, isn’t the salary increases. It’s the same-sex domestic partner coverage.

The agreement also adds gender identity as a protected classification under a non-discrimination clause.

Expanding the benefits, sick leave and tuition reduction to same-sex partners is something we’re proud of, and after a fall semester full of administrative scandal ranging from drunk driving to DNA testing, we’re relieved to be able to say that.

The fact that we know the AAUP was pushing for this and that the administration was seemingly hesitant to include it doesn’t matter too much. We understand, from a business standpoint, that expanding this coverage is an expense and that that was probably a concern. We hope that that was the only argument they had.

After all, same-sex domestic partner coverage has already been available at Ohio State University. In fact, in 2005, nine out of the Big Ten schools provided the coverage. The national AAUP’s Web site reports that nearly 300 colleges and universities provided some form of benefits to same-sex partners in the same year.

That was five years ago.

We’re proud that the university is now providing this coverage. We’re also hopeful that we won’t be so far behind next time something like this comes around.

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