The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 9, 1994 - 3 Same-sex couples to receive employee benefits The University is moving forward with its promise last September to end discrimination based on sexual orien- tation. The University Board of Regents amended Bylaw 14.06 - the nondis- crimination clause--to include sexual orientation in the list ofcharacteristics that the University may not use to dif- ferentiate between individuals. At its monthly meeting in May, the regents endorsed a task force re- port that outlined changes necessary in University policy due to the bylaw. "We do intend to fulfill our re- sponsibility to the Board of Regents and move ahead with the policy they approved last September," Univer- sity President James J. Duderstadt said at the meeting. The report spelled out the follow- ing recommendations. U Same-sex couples must docu- ment their relationship with a "domes- tic partnership registration." Employment benefits will be ex- tended to gay male or lesbian partners of University employees. * Same-sex couples will have the same access to family housing as mar- ried couples. UFinancialaidavailableto spouses will be extended to gay male and les- bian partners. ETheUniversity will grant student residency status to same-sex relation- ships in the same manner as married couples. The University is in the process of implementing the changes. Duderstadt said they should be complete by the beginning of next year. Ronni Sanlo, director of the Les- bian, Gay, Bisexual Programs Office, said the partners of University em- ployees will be able to recieve benifits as of Jan. 1. Although many of the changes do not affect undergraduates, Sanlo said the addition is still important to gay and lesbian students. Speaking of her college experience, she said, "I would have felt better about who I was know- ing that I was in a place of safety and a place of inclusiveness." Director of Family Housing, Eric Luskin, said the division is already accepting applications from same-sex couples. He does not expect the change-over to displace any married couples or single parents. "We're talking about so few num- bers. Atmost schools around the coun- try ... it's had a very minimal impact. I don't anticipate that being any differ- ent here," he said. In the residence halls, a policy against granting room change requests solely based on one roommate's sexual orientation is already in place. "We don't ask about sexual orien- tation so I don't expect any changes in the residence halls," said Associate Director of Housing Archie Andrews. "We don't acknowledge those types of (transfer) requests." The report and the changes that it prompted are not universally accepted. Regent Deane Baker (R-Ann Ar- bor) said the comparison of same- sex relationships to married couples is "in opposition to 4,000 years of nurturing and building the family as the cornerstone of the Western civi- lization." A Rackham student, Jefferson Wil- liams, also spoke against the report before the regents meeting. "Now the University is being asked to extend the privilege of family hous- ing to a new group of people - a group whose members, we have seen, can only be identified on the basis of a particular aspect of their behavior- which is still illegal under Michigan state law," Williams said. At the May regents meeting, Regent Deane Baker (R-Ann Arbor) expresses his opposition to changing Bylaw 14.06 to include sexual orientation. S UMM"ER AT A GLANcE What happened while you were away? By Daily Staff Reporters Lisa Dines, Ronnie Glassberg and James M. Nash In-state tuition rate tops $5,000 appropriations to the University have failed to rise with the rate of inflation. In 1985-86, the state funded 51.6 per- cent of the University's general fund, compared to 37.3 percent for this year. This year state appropriations to the University increased 2.3 percent. President James J. Duderstadt said in-state tution will need to increase more rapidly as state appropriations fail to increase at the level of inflation. "For Michigan residents, the state, in theory, provides the discount. If the state is unwilling to pay the discount, we must ask people to pay a little more," Duderstadt said. Duderstadt said students who can- not afford to attend the University can benefit through increases in financial aid. Of the funding generated by the tuition hike, 18.3 percent will go to- ward increasing financial aid. "The real price - tuition minus the average financial aid- has held steady and has actually dropped a bit," he said. "It's really asking parents to carry a little more of the weight because they aren't in terms of taxes, but someone has to pay.". Otherincreases will be used to boost faculty and administrator salaries, un- dergraduate education and for hiring minority and female professors in ac- cordance with recent University initia- tives. The budget also includes a flex- iblereservefundof$3.2million incase funding projections fall short. Associate Vice President for Gov- ernmentRelations Keith Molin said he does not see any evidence that the state has the commitment to increase the University's appropriations. "The best picture of the future is usually the past and if you take a look at the past a serious diminishing part of our budget is coming from the state," Molin said. "The commitment has to be on the part of the state. The state has not made the tough decisions.', Molin said besides state appro- priations the University can only turn to tuition and fees, revenue generated by research, and philan- thropy to increase funds. The only area the University has direct con- trol over is tuition and fees. State Sen. John Schwarz (R-Battle Creek), chair of the higher education appropriations committee, said it's dif- ficult for the state to find to find extra money for the state universities. "The problem in the last six or seven years in the state budget is that corrections and social services have been eating the budget alive," he said. Schwarz said compared to other states, Michigan is doing well in its level of appropriations. "'The picture nationwide is thatsome states have made massive cuts in their higher education budgets and we've never cut higher education," Schwarz said. 'U' audit discovers misspent endowments Debit card to extend beyond 'U' Entr6e Plus, as familiar to stu- dents as the ID cards it's encoded on, will vanish from campus next fall in favor of a newer form of plastic cash. The card has been at the center of a dispute between off-campus retail- ers, who are currently denied its use, and the University, which feared that extending the debit card would vio- late the law. Over the summer, University offi- cials defused the tension by offering to make the card available to book- stores, restaurants and other busi- nesses off campus. The card is now available only to merchants on Uni- versity property, creating what critics call an unfair monopoly. As the program now operates, En- tree Plus will be run as a debit-card program, allowing students to deposit funds into a pre-paid account. Money is withdrawn from the account when a cardholder makes a purchase. While details of the revised pro- gram remain sketchy, University of- ficials indicate that it will be affiliated with a bank. Merchants who want to w join the program would contact the f: bank. The University, meanwhile, would continue to reap 1-3 percent of profitsK from transactions made with Entre Plus. Off-campus merchants insistthat their prices won't increase, because 9 , higher sales will offset the profits lost 4: to the program. But students may be stuck with - the bill in the end, warned University Controller Robert Moenart. "What we're looking at is the com- - mercial side as a debit function man- aged by a bank and the campus side managed by the University," he said. " "Of course, any additional costs would :: be passed on to the ultimate user, k which is primarily students." Off-campus merchants used a pe- tition drive and veiled threats of legal action to pressure the University to expand Entre Plus. The card origi- nated in 1983 as a transferrable meal W: pass in residence halls. Even after the University an- nounced in July that Entr6e Plus will K be expanded by next fall, the mer- chants are not savoring their victory. F- "Waiting another year doesn't K exactly make me happy," said Dave K Richard, general manager of Michi- gan Book & Supply. Z The new program will be tested on a limited basis in January, University officials said. The card may take on a , new name. The successor to Entree Plus will be modeled after the debit card pro- gram at Florida State University, the FSUCard. Administrators at Florida State and the University agree that the program offers additional conve- niences to its users. "It will be even more useful to The audit spanned from July 1989 to December 1992, a time of turmoil for the communication department. Former chair Frank Beaver resigned and was replaced by Neil Malamuth, who also resigned earlier this year. The crisis in the department did not account for endowment spending patterns, Smith said. "I don't think they were very closely related." The audit reviewed funds from three endowments set up in the mid- 1970s: the Weber fund, the Howard R. Marsh Professorship in Journal- ism and the Howard R. Marsh Center for the Study of Journalistic Perfor- mance. The journalism department was dissolved in 1979 and merged with communication. The change created some confusion over how to spend the endowments, Cross said. But in a departure from custom, officials did not contact relatives of the donor to ask how to spend the funds, he added. In response to the audit, the Col- lege of LSA announced it will tighten monitoring of endowment spending. The process of phasing in stricter spending restrictions was under way before the audit. University lawyers will determine whether expenditures are in line with the donors' intentions, Cross said. The regents were notified at the EVAN PETRIE/Daily Debi Cain of SAPAC and Capt. Jim Smiley from DPS address a group concerned about the serial rapist. Serial rapist bringsn fear to'U students, residents As University students head home afterexams, summer generally brings tranquility to Ann Arbor. But the mood changed early when police spread word that they believe a serial rapist is living in Ann Arbor. On May 7, a suspected serial rap- ist living in Ann Arbor killed an Un- dergraduate Admissions Office em- ployee. Through DNA testing, police linked this murder to three earlier fatal, Caldwell said. The attack on Gailbreath took place in the afternoon in the 2100 block of West Stadium, off of the south side of the Farmer Jack parking lot. Gailbreath was last seen at 1 p.m. at Arbor Drugs. She was attacked in a wooded area she had cut through to return home. "My assumption is that whatever sets him off, he's go- ing to kill the first women. He doesn't care if he kills his victims," :7 _