DeanWuBlog

Pride at Work

I am disappointed by the decision of the Michigan Court of Appeals in National Pride at Work v. Granholm. As Dean of Wayne State University Law School, I filed a declaration in this litigation. I stated that I was attracted to the opportunity to return to my hometown in this role, in part because I knew that I was coming back to a place that respected the equality of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). Furthermore, I stated, our ability to compete in the national marketplace for faculty, administrators, and staff is significantly enhanced by the provision of benefits to partners who are same-sex.

I would like, then, to take this opportunity to declare that I will continue to do whatever is possible, appropriate, and effective, to ensure we protect the civil rights of our LGBT colleagues, friends, and students. Our status as a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) requires no less. The AALS By-Laws set forth a standard of “diversity and affirmative action.” By-Law 6-3 mandates that “a member school shall provide equality of opportunity in legal education for all persons” and it lists numerous grounds of impermissible discrimination, including “race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability,” or of significance in this context, “sexual orientation.” This provision explicitly applies to “hiring, continuation, promotion, and tenure” of “faculty and employees.” The AALS is a group to which the best law schools belong, and we are proud of our status as an AALS law school since 1946.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for an individual who has the honor of leading a public institution is ensuring that he acts in the best interests not of himself but the institution. Accordingly, it is important to make statements that reflect not personal beliefs but institutional policies. Yet a dean has the responsibility as well to lead, presenting a vision of positive change, turning rhetoric into reality. In some instances, that makes controversy inevitable and criticism likely; it requires a willingness to take risks.

This is such a case. Wayne State University, with the other research universities in this great state, have publicly supported the provision of benefits to domestic partners, and we have made efforts to persuade the courts that the voter initiative passed two and a half years ago, as its supporters said repeatedly, was not meant to affect the benefits issue. For me, it would be a failure of character to fail to stand up and speak out on behalf of the many persons in committed relationships that happen to be of the same sex. Ours is a profession that respects the rule of law, indeed that depends on the very rule of law, but it is a profession that, at its best, offers the possibility that justice will be realized through the law.