Stanford University on Domestic Partnership Benefits
Excerpted from:
Fried, Barbara. Domestic Partner Benefits: A Case Study. Stanford University, College and University Personnel Association, 1994.Many in the Stanford community accept in principle that employee benefits should be extended to domestic partners (in particular gay and lesbian partners). They feel, however, that Stanford ought not to take the lead in this matter, but instead wait for the states to extend legal marriage to gays and lesbians, or for substantial concerns voiced on this score are that…a decision to extend benefits will be politically unpopular… Many undoubtedly feel that this is an inopportune time for Stanford to insert itself into yet another controversy….
We are less certain what larger political effect a decision to extend benefits would have. The publicity surrounding the recent decisions of Lotus, Levi-Strauss, and MCA to extend benefits has been uniformly positive, and has prompted a number of other employers to consider extending benefits as well. It is also possible that a decision by Stanford not to extend benefits would generate its own negative publicity, if supporters of the bill choose to take their case outside the university. On the other side, Stanford, unlike private employers such as Lotus, Levi-Strauss, and MCA, is dependent on public funds. A decision to extend benefits, if widely publicized, might antagonize some of the more conservative members of Congress. Whether that annoyance would in some attenuated way translate into lower government support for Stanford and institutions as a whole is more doubtful, but certainly possible. While it is impossible to guess the political fallout from a decision to extend benefits, it seems clear that were public relations Stanford’s sole concern, the prudent course would be for the school to act only when a significant number of other employers had already acted on the issue. The Stanford community must decide how strongly such considerations should be weighed. We believe, however, three things should be kept in mind.
First, Stanford’s mission does not end with narrowly defined tasks of teaching and research. Like most colleges and universities, it has historically (and we believe commendably) perceived part of its role to be a moral force not merely in the education of its students but in society at large. Consistent with that role, it has tried to hold itself to higher ethical standards than might prevail in society in general, often at some political cost…Viewed in that light, the bill presents a political opportunity (indeed, some would ague a political obligation), not just a political liability. Again, we think it is instructive to keep in mind how one would view the same question with respect to other forms of discrimination. One imagines, for example, that a decision by Stanford 40 years ago to take the lead in eradicating discrimination against blacks, women, and Jews in admissions, hiring, memberships in sororities and fraternities, etc., would have been politically unpopular with many alumni, as well as with the larger political community. One also imagines that had Stanford taken such a leadership role, few in the Stanford community would look back on that decision now with anything but pride…
The highly publicized decisions of Lotus and Levi-Strauss to extend benefits have triggered an enormous increase in interest from other employers. We would expect a similar result among many colleges and universities were Stanford to extend benefits to domestic partners. Indeed, several of the institutions surveyed indicated that, while they supported extending benefits in principle, they were waiting for other campuses to take the lead. As a political matter, that means that if Stanford does adopt domestic partner benefits, it is unlikely to find itself standing alone among colleges and universities for long. As an ethical matter, it suggests that Stanford’s leadership is likely to have more than symbolic impact.
Third, the question posed at the beginning of this section—"Should Stanford take a Leadership Role on Domestic Partner Benefits"—implies, we believe erroneously, that the alternative to Stanford’s extending benefits is to do nothing. If the proposed extension of benefits is rejected, the result will be to continue to enforce the existing allocation of benefits, in which employees are compensated at different levels based on their marital status. If that is wrong, it therefore constitutes an affirmative wrong, not merely a failure to do all the university might do to right the wrongs of others.
Finally, we wish to comment on the frequent suggestion that we should leave it to the state to solve the problem by revising its laws to permit same-sex marriages. Unlike many practices that are so deeply embedded in society that individual initiatives for change have little effect, Stanford has the power to alter its own local practice at will. Given that fact, the argument that Stanford ought to wait for the state to extend legal marriage to gay and lesbian partners seems particularly unappealing. While such a change in state policy would simplify Stanford’s task in extending benefits to gay and lesbian partners, Stanford need not wait for such a change to act. There is also little prospect that states will act soon to alter the definition of marriage, or that Stanford can do anything to hasten the process.
The foregoing of course assumes that the Stanford community does support the goal of parity for domestic partners reflected in the proposed bill. All we wish to suggest here that the more strongly it supports such a goal, the less attractive the argument that Stanford ought to wait for someone else—whether the state or other employers—to take the initiative.