FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 8, 2004

Subject: Major Victory for Rutgers Faculty

Contact: Rudy Bell, President
732-445-2278

The Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters is proud to announce the passage of the Domestic Partnership Act. We congratulate Senator Codey and Assemblywomen Weinberg and Watson Coleman for their sponsorship of the bill and their steadfast support in the face of some harsh opposition. We congratulate all of those legislators who voted in support of this bill, realizing that it was a question of fairness and equity. For the faculty and graduate student body at Rutgers, it was also a matter of competitiveness.

As we recruit outstanding faculty and graduate students to the University, we need to assure them that the rights of their partners are recognized by the State of New Jersey just as they are at most of our peer state universities. AAUP Negotiations Chair, Bob Boikess (Professor of Chemistry) stated, "We simply cannot continue to compete with our peer universities for outstanding scholars, researchers and students without such equal benefits for domestic partners. We have had a similar bargaining proposal on the table for over a year. With this issue resolved, we hope that the Rutgers administration will move quickly to place a fair and equitable offer on the table for all other outstanding issues."

We also congratulate Governor McGreevey, who worked hard for this legislation and has promised to sign it. We at AAUP for years have rallied in support of such provisions: as a member of the Family Equality Coalition, in newspapers, with our e-mails and other messages, and through our contacts with key legislators. Even Rutgers President McCormick accepted our call to support the current legislation.

"Passage of this Act removes a major obstacle to reaching a settlement of our current contract dispute with the Rutgers administration, since we have insisted resolutely on providing same sex partner benefits and the administration has refused to do so unless the State paid for this coverage. Now the State has done its part to help us toward reaching an agreement. We hope that the removal of this hurdle will allow us to do the rest in a timely and equitable way," stated AAUP President Rudy Bell – Professor of History.