by Peter Browning
On June 1, 2007, Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, began offering benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian faculty members. The Board of Trustees approved this policy change at its May meeting. As Drury University’s executive director of communications, Bill Noblit, stated, “We look at it as an affirmation of all people’s worth in our community. Increasingly, it’s a common benefit among Fortune 500 companies, our peer institutions and some states.”
Drury’s academic dean Dr. Charles Taylor said benefits for partners will include medical and dental coverage, tuition assistance, fitness center privileges, library privileges, the university’s tax-saving plan as well as coverage under the federal Family Medical Leave Act.
In the days following the decision, The Springfield News Leader praised the new policy. As the editor wrote, “Around here, Drury University is in line for heaps of criticism after deciding to grant domestic partner benefits to gays and lesbians employed at the university. Already, letter writers have sharpened their pens and attacked the private liberal arts university for daring to ‘endorse’ what the letter writers call the ‘homosexual lifestyle.’ Indeed, what Drury endorsed was good business. Common sense. Leadership. ... We salute Drury for making a decision that makes it a leader in higher education in Missouri, but makes it just another member of the 21st century higher education and business community elsewhere.”
Commenting on the decision, the then-president of the university Dr. John Sellars (who resigned in May to accept a position as president of Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa) mentioned the influence of the newly adopted equal opportunity statement: “Without providing the same type of benefit package (as is available for heterosexual employees’ spouses), we were actually discriminating and that we were not in line with what we had said within our equal opportunity statement.”
Chaplain Peter Browning strongly supported the new benefits. “Drury was founded by Congregationalists in the 1870s who believed in social justice,” he explained. “ The early days of the institution were marked by a commitment to non-sectarianism in admissions and hiring; the presence of women on the faculty and the student body at a time when that was rare; and an openness to ethnic diversity with many first students being Native Americans. This decision in support of social justice is in keeping with our church-related heritage and its commitment to value all members of the human community.”
Drury's website is http://www.drury.edu/
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