UW-Madison's Faculty Senate passed a resolution Monday afternoon supporting domestic partner benefits for state employees, though it recognized the difficulty of working against obstacles like the statewide vote to ban same-sex marriages.
""We're becoming more isolated in terms of the number of universities that don't offer domestic partner benefits,"" said Paul Toth, a UW-Madison assistant professor of curriculum instruction, who contributed to the writing of the resolution.
Faculty senators inquired about ways to circumvent current legal obstacles, such as implementing a policy allowing an employee to add another adult to their health insurance plan without requiring an explanation of the relationship to the employee.
However, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley dismissed some proposed options.
""There's a lot of wishful thinking that could solve this, but that's not the case,"" Wiley said.
He added the university is ""literally blocked"" by the language of the laws prohibiting funding of domestic partner benefits.
Approval of the resolution serves as a symbolic act, said Robert Mathieu, astronomy professor and chair of the University Committee of the Faculty Senate
The resolution expresses the Faculty Senate's belief that all UW-Madison employees deserve equal compensation for equal work and that lack of domestic partner benefits causes economic hardship and also hurts the university's efforts to recruit and retain high-quality faculty and staff.
""It enables the University Committee and the Senate to take actions on behalf of domestic partner benefits, working with student groups and other governance groups to promote domestic partner benefits,"" Mathieu said.
The Faculty Senate also approved a letter to the UW System Board of Regents calling for reconsideration of the proposed policy to require background checks for new employees.
Members of the Faculty Senate reacted optimistically to progress in working with the Board of Regents regarding criminal background checks on new employees but said the ""checks should be limited to those required by state and federal laws.""
Requiring criminal background checks, according to Mathieu, may give off a ""chilling"" vibe regarding UW-Madison's atmosphere and would expend time and money unnecessarily.
When comparing offers from different universities, he said a required criminal background check might give prospective faculty a poor impression of the university's workplace and hiring procedures.
""We're concerned about the ability to recruit excellent faculty for the students,"" Mathieu said.
