Details:

PRESS RELEASE:

Eastern Michigan University American Association of University Professors (EMU-AAUP)

YPSILANTI - On February 2, 2007, the Michigan Appellate Court issued a decision in National Pride At Work, Inc. v. Granholm, concluding that Michigan public universities cannot provide domestic partnership benefits to the same-sex partners of employees or the partners' children, and directing that its ruling take effect immediately. The plaintiffs were working with the ACLU in this case.

The EMU-AAUP has made these benefits a priority, and we collectively bargained for these benefits in 2000. These benefits are currently a component of our contract (see http://www.emuprofessors.org/files/emuaaup_2004-06_contract.pdf, page 2 and other provisions, starting with Marginal paragraph 242).

We believe that these benefits are essential to an atmosphere of tolerance, respect, and openness at a university, and that they are critical in order to attract and retain qualified faculty and other personnel. Since we believe it is important that these benefits be maintained, the EMU-AAUP is considering all of our legal and contractual options.

When this lawsuit was first filed, the EMU-AAUP, as a part of the Michigan Conference of the AAUP, as well as the National AAUP, joined the lawsuit by filing an amicus brief to the appellate court. This brief said, in part:

• Public universities have a right, and a need, to offer domestic partnership benefits to same sex employees and their children.

• Denial of these benefits is a violation of AAUP policy against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The plaintiffs are considering an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, based on the following:

• The Court of Appeals was wrong to state that just because employees had to register as domestic partners, this does not mean that this equates this relationship to marriage, which would go against the amendment.
• The Court of Appeals was wrong to state that denying these benefits would violate the equal protection clause of the Michigan constitution.

The EMU-AAUP will be in contact with the Michigan Conference of the AAUP, the National AAUP, the plaintiffs and the EMU administration to discuss next steps, with the overriding goal of maintaining these important benefits for the faculty at Eastern Michigan University.