Outgoing rector warns Virginia on gay marriage

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Outgoing rector warns Virginia on gay marriage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/outgoing-rector-warns-virginia-on-gay-marriage/2013/08/12/d250d466-e956-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html

By Nick Anderson,

Jeff Trammell, a D.C. lobbyist and gay Democratic activist, was elated when the Supreme Court ruled in late June that the federal government must treat legally married gay couples the same as married heterosexual couples.

But as the outgoing leader of the College of William and Mary’s governing Board of Visitors, Trammell also worried that the ruling would make Virginia’s vaunted public universities less attractive for gay academics. Virginia prohibits same-sex marriage and does not offer health benefits to domestic partners of state employees. The District, Maryland and a dozen other states have legalized same-sex marriage.

The high court decision adds “a substantial incentive for our gay and lesbian faculty and staff to leave the Commonwealth’s public universities and colleges,” Trammell wrote to other Virginia higher education leaders in a June 26 e-mail, hours after the ruling was issued.

Trammell had earlier noted — in a letter on June 11 — that the presidents of the University of Virginia, George Mason University and William and Mary had pushed for the state to allow public universities to offer domestic partner health benefits in late 2009. That effort stalled after Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) took office in January 2010.
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[JPZenger]

1. ... and who tried to block colleges from providing same sex benefits - it was Cucci

A number of Va. universities were ready to provide equal benefits for same sex couples. It was Cuccinelli who tried to find legal authority to block them.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Virginia’s public colleges need to get smarter on benefits

Virginia’s public colleges need to get smarter on benefits
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginias-public-colleges-need-to-get-smarter-on-benefits/2013/08/20/74658be6-069b-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

The Post’s View
By Editorial Board

NOT LONG AGO, a tenured professor at the University of Virginia’s College of Arts and Sciences moved to a university in New York because her same-sex partner, diagnosed with cancer, couldn’t get covered by her health insurance in Virginia. A physician at U-Va.’s medical school decamped for an Ivy League school because state law doesn’t recognize her relationship with her partner or their children, so she couldn’t get them coverage.

How many more talented minds have to leave before Virginia takes concrete action to protect publicly employed academics and thus the quality of their universities?

That’s the question raised by Jeff Trammell, who documented these and other difficulties encountered by gay faculty before he stepped down last month as a board member at Virginia’s College of William and Mary, his alma mater; he was rector, or leader of the board, for the past two years. Before he left, Mr. Trammell, who is gay, urged that Virginia allow public universities to offer domestic partner benefits to academics in same-sex partnerships and marriages.
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A number of Virginia’s public university presidents pushed for the state to address this very problem in 2009. They have been ignored by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and the outspoken anti-gayrights attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II (R). Mr. Trammell is right to bring up the issue again.