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Pitt administrators won't attend meeting on same-sex benefits
Tuesday, October 12, 1999 By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said yesterday that he and other top administrators wouldn't take part in a faculty-led campus discussion Oct. 20 on a highly charged issue at Pitt -- same-sex benefits.
Nordenberg cited litigation in which seven current and former employees had accused Pitt of discriminating against them by denying health insurance for their gay and lesbian partners.
The chancellor had been invited to offer opening remarks. He said it would be the first time he would miss a campus plenary session, held twice yearly, since becoming chancellor.
He and senior administrators "really feel that we don't have much choice," Nordenberg told the school's Senate Council.
Nordenberg questioned whether the decision to hold the meeting the day before Pitt's board of trustees was scheduled to meet on Oct. 21 was an effort to draw more public attention to the issue.
He said Evan Wolfson, a civil rights attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who was chosen by the faculty as keynote speaker for the event, was "a person who almost certainly has had some contact with the lawyers" from the American Civil Liberties Union who are pressing the case against Pitt.
Audrey Murrell, a faculty member who helped organize the meeting, said she was disappointed by Nordenberg's decision. She said there was no plan to raise specific issues in the Pitt case.
Also yesterday, the Senate Council passed an amended version of a faculty resolution supporting gay and lesbian students. Deleted from it was a reference to comments by a top Pitt trustee about gays that inspired the resolution. Nordenberg suggested the language was superfluous.
Also at yesterday's Senate council meeting, Nordenberg announced that total enrollment is up at Pitt for the third straight year. It rose by 0.8 percent, or 251 students, to 32,544.
The Senate Council is composed of faculty members, administrators, staff and students, while the Faculty Assembly is made up primarily of teachers.
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