We are Texas, and we want to be the best.
We love our sports teams, especially when they win. We take pride in placing high on annual university rankings, whether they are for academics or “top party school.”
Pride in our University fuels the school to strive for academic excellence among its peers. Achieving that excellence requires the utilization of any competitive advantage. While facilities and admissions both play key roles in establishing a university, it is the quality of professors that contributes most to a school’s academia. By not offering medical benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian faculty and staff, the University is diminishing the quality of the education it offers by shrinking the pool of potential faculty and staff.
At least, that is the focal point of the argument put forth by advocates of extending domestic partner benefits to same-sex faculty and staff couples. Proponents argue that by not recognizing gay and lesbian couples, the University is handicapped in their hiring practices. Qualified professors might shun the university in favor of other institutions that do offer such benefits, supporters of same-sex benefits argue.
Currently, 74 percent of universities nation-wide offer domestic partner benefits, including several notable public universities like Michigan, Illinois and North Carolina. By not offering comparable benefits as its competitors, some argue we are falling behind, citing anecdotes of faculty members who left the school or chose another position due to lack of medical benefits for their significant others.
But there is a basic and fundamental conflict with extending domestic partner benefits: Texans don’t want it.
Texas is one of 29 states that has defined marriage as a heterosexual relationship. Texas also does not recognize marriage-like civil unions. It can be assumed that a majority of Texans would not be in favor of the extension of such benefits.
Were we a private university, the school would have full discretion in the issuing of benefits among its faculty and staff. This past year, the University received $343 million from the state.
That additional funding helps keep in-state tuition low — making UT affordable while still nationally competitive. While proponents of domestic partner benefits say instituting the benefits will not cost the University much, it is important to put those numbers in context with the funds received from the state.
Quite simply, the University relies on the state and its Legislature which has the power to give or take appropriations from the budget. The Legislature is in turn accountable to its constituents, those same voters who disapprove of same-sex unions.
To issue benefits to same-sex partners, which could be paid for with tax money, would require legislators to ignore the values of the voters whom they have sworn to represent.
It is also unlikely that legislators will be swayed by the argument that withholding benefits weakens the school’s academic status. It took several years for representatives to finally amend the infamous top 10 percent law — a piece of legislation that has a much more profound effect on the school’s quality of education.
The best professor I have had at UT to date is a gay man, and were he to leave the University for any reason, I would be the first to claim that the academic quality of the school had been immediately lessened. But that is not justification to spit in the face of Texan taxpayers, to say “we’ll take your money but not your morality.”
A day may come when the citizens of Texas are swayed. The past year has shown significant shifts in the gay rights debate with many noted conservatives, such as former vice president Dick Cheney, declaring support for the cause. But when that change does come, it will not be from a student government resolution or a faculty commission, but from the sentiments and ballots of the people.
Player is a plan II honors junior.
