Marquette has made progress in its efforts to grant more rights to LGBT students, faculty, staff and administrators, especially considering the recent announcement that the university will extend employee benefits to their registered domestic partners.
And though these important developments are encouraging, there are still policies intact that are unfair to those on campus who identify as LGBT and raise concerns of equality.
Marquette’s current bereavement leave policy wrongly ignores staff members who have same-sex partners. If a staff member’s same-sex partner passes away, no paid or unpaid time off from work would be provided. Instead, the only way to grieve a loved one’s passing is apparently to use vacation time.
The university’s official bereavement policy allows employees to take three paid days off from work when a spouse or close relative dies. This time off is used to grieve for their partner, make funeral arrangements, deal with the deceased’s will and/or possessions and address any other remaining personal matters.
Christopher Daniel, an ordering-receiving technician at Raynor Memorial Library and an LGBT-identifying staff member, recently lost his partner of 16 years. But he was forced to use vacation time because Marquette’s bereavement leave policy does not include same-sex partners.
It is unfortunate that Daniel was unable to receive time off to mourn someone who was such a significant part of his life.
“They have made exceptions for such things as ‘step’ relatives, but won’t for same-sex partner,” Daniel told the Tribune. “To me, this was hurtful and immensely unfair.”
Since LGBT employees recently received benefits for themselves and their registered domestic partners, those benefits should also be extended to the bereavement leave policy.
An LGBT staff member grieving over the loss of their same-sex partner is no different from a heterosexual staff member grieving over the loss of their significant other. It’s wrong that this policy is not provided for identical circumstances.
According to Octavio Castro, director of Human Resources, the current priority is the extension of benefits for domestic partners, but the bereavement policy is under review as well.
And we understand that, as Provost John Pauly said last week, there must be discussion before making such a policy change.
But we disagree that there should be lengthy debate on this issue. We see no reason the final decision should be different than that of extending benefits to registered domestic partners.
So speed up the “review,” Marquette, and get it done. Once same-sex partners are included in Marquette’s bereavement leave policy, a greater sense of equality will be established for the LGBT community on campus.
But LGBT staff members also need to be better-included in the ongoing discussion of LGBT issues on campus. Some LGBT staff members have raised concerns that they have limited opportunities to make their voices heard, and that they have sometimes been excluded from discussions.
No matter how many benefits are given to LGBT staff members, if they are unable to discuss issues that concern and affect them, they will remain a group on campus that isn’t represented or treated fairly.
While students have the Gender Sexuality Alliance and the Student Task Force to voice their opinions, staff members have limited options.
If LGBT employees call for such an initiative, Marquette needs to approve and support a group on campus for LGBT faculty, staff and administrators so that everyone involved with these issues can have a fair say.
Notable improvements in equality are being made by Marquette, but there is plenty of progress left to make. Now is the time for the university to build momentum by taking these two important steps.