Student Group Demands LDA Benefits at St. Norbert College

"A community can be judged by the amount of equality it provides," said Max Klos '12 at the "Value our Families" info session, held in the Campus Center Lounge in late April. At this session, members of a special topics Sociology course informed the campus community about the actions other colleges and universities have taken to provide equalizing benefits for both married couples and legally domiciled families. Besides Klos, presenters included Danica Joosten '12, Ryan Pavlik'09, and Andre Korenak'11. The group of students also spoke about possible ways to implement benefits for legally domiciled families here at SNC.Since the term "legally domiciled" encompasses domestic partnerships as well as relatives who are not child-dependents, the issue does not limit itself to same-sex couples, as Joosten pointed out. Given this background, 430 colleges and universities in the United States offer full-coverage (health, dental, etc.) of all legally domiciled dependents. 40 percent offer health benefits to same-sex partners, 30 percent to opposite-sex partners, and 45 percent to children of same-sex partnerships. In addition, according to Pavlik, former president of the LGBTQ-organization Rainbow Alliance, several leading Catholic institutions offer legally domiciled adult/domestic partner benefits. The first Catholic school to provide benefits was Loyola Marymount in California, but the most publicized school is Georgetown, where LDA benefits have been provided since January of 2006. Other schools that offer benefits include De Paul University and Loyola University of Chicago.

In their presentation, the students argued for domestic partnership benefits at St. Norbert. Pavlik stated that such benefits "offer a strengthening commitment to community." In terms of the families affected by such benefits, he said, "We know these are diverse family structures, so we're going to support those structures and support what makes employees successful." Klos then pointed out an official statement of St. Norbert College that states that the college does not discriminate based on the Equal Rights Act, but "cherishes its right and duty to seek and retain employees who will make a positive contribution to its religious character." Klos then critiqued the college's current policy, saying that "attacking relationships doesn't really mesh with the Catholic Intellectual Tradition," which seeks to be inclusive, diverse, compassionate, and non-judgmental. Klos called the college to "evaluate from a humanitarian perspective rather than a doctrinal perspective."

Korenak argued for LDA benefits from a business perspective when he stated that such benefits would lead "employees [to] become more comfortable, more open," would encourage diversity, and would be attractive to potential faculty and staff.

In an interview with the St. Norbert Times, Pavlik explained the possibility of implementing LDA benefits at SNC further. "We've got a lot of the startup work done for this policy change," he said. "We just need to nail down the specifics (phrasing of our LDA definition, since they vary widely; clearly articulated costs and likely enrollment; etc.) and talk to the right people. We need students to help with this sort of research coordinated with the work we've already done on the issue."

When asked what implications a policy change would have for SNC, Pavlik said, "I think that adoption of the LDA benefits policy would signify a genuine, reflective commitment to community and the courage to be proactive in finding ways to make St. Norbert College the best living/learning community possible. I also think it would show a willingness to consider issues on a deep level, in line with our heritage of the liberal arts and the Catholic intellectual tradition, which seems to be an admirable path and the right one for an institution of higher education."

Pavlik also spoke about the challenges of communicating the goal of implementing LDA benefits to the larger SNC community: "The contemplation linked with this issue is pretty important, especially given that discernment of values and action is a vital part of the SNC experience, but in explaining, we can lose people in detail, and in simplification, we can lose the reflection." He also pointed out his awareness of potential conflicts in terms of religious core values of the college: "I don't see the religious dimension personally as an issue, as a Catholic myself, and I don't think I'm alone in that. Nevertheless, we took care to devote time to it during our presentation because we were aware, both independently and in our discussions with others, that it might become or be made an issue by our audience. We wanted to be intellectually honest and straightforward, and address the fact that arguments against LDA benefits could be found in a religious dimension, but that it wasn't cut-and-dried since there was also a solid case to be made in favor of the benefits from those same perspectives. Other colleges sharing similar values and situations had worked through these conflicts before, and so we realized that sharing those conflicts and the resolutions would be a good way to educate on the topic.