Issue No. 1 Wed, Dec 1st, 2010
Agnes Scott Queer Times
Researched and Edited by susiescorcher and Pinky Madison
Agnes Scott Staff Dress Code:
Agnes Scott College is viewed from the outside as a decidedly liberal school. Many students feel like Agnes Scott functions like a bubble where we have freedom to be whoever we want to be. A rather large amount of talk occurs about the college’s lack of a transgender policy for students, but little attention is paid to what the existing policies are for Agnes Scott College staff members. After consulting the staff handbook and meeting with Karen Gilbert, the director of Agnes Scott Human Resources, here’s what I’ve found.
Though obviously transitioning is about much more than clothes, it is one of the more obvious steps in the process. The Agnes Scott College Staff Handbook does not actually have a dress code provided for all staff members. The policy states that individual dress codes are created and enforced by each worker’s supervisor. This of course means that the policy can differ wildly from supervisor to supervisor, though Karen Gilbert assured me that if a staff member is transitioning, they can speak with their supervisor and should be allowed to wear job-appropriate clothing of the gender they are transitioning to.
While it is certainly good that staff members are theoretically allowed to transition in the work place at Agnes Scott, the lack of explicitly stated policy could be troubling to some. Karen Gilbert made it clear that she could not see a reason why a supervisor would not allow an employee to transition, but is the lack of one clear, official stance on the matter may be discouraging to staff members. We could not find any openly trans staff members willing to comment, so perhaps this is not the case, but from the information we do have, it seems it may be problematic.
Discrimination or Harassment and Equal Employment Opportunity Policies:
historical revisions of policies needed to protect queer faculty and staff
Two of the major pieces of policy which affect the everyday experiences of queer faculty and staff are the Discrimination or Harassment Policy and the Equal Employment Opportunity Policy. In both of the staff handbooks to which we were able to obtain access, the 1999 Personnel Handbook and the 2004 Employee Handbook, both of these policies were present.
The Discrimination or Harassment policy protects all faculty and staff from discrimination or harassment related to a number of facets of their identity. The policy statement was constructed by the Board of Trustees of the college and published on May 18, 1990. It appears in the following format in both the 1999 and the 2004 publications of policy handbook:
Agnes Scott College values diversity and seeks to foster an environment that welcomes and supports contributions from all members of the Agnes Scott College community. Discrimination or harassment is unacceptable on this campus. Such behavior is contrary to our intellectual environment and the spirit of fellowship fundamental to our community.
Discrimination or harassment may take many forms, including but not limited to verbal insults, inappropriate humor, defacement or destruction of property and physical intimidation. It may be directed at any one of our distinctive human differences, all members of our community are diminished by these acts.
Harassment or discrimination of any person or group of persons on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or disability is a violation of Agnes Scott College policy. Persons determined to have engaged in unacceptable behavior, such as activity which substantially threatens or interferes with another person's academic efforts, property, employment or participation in the life of the College or creates a hostile or demeaning atmosphere, will be subject to prompt disciplinary action.”
The identities protected by the policy include sexual orientation which is an important protection for certain queer people. However, the absence in this policy of gender expression, gender identity or genetic information leaves vulnerable some of the most currently under-protected queer populations – intersex people, trans-identified people and gender-queer people.
The most recent version of the Equal Employment Opportunity policy, however, revises these elisions, which were made also in the 1999 Equal Opportunity statement. In the 1999 handbook, the portion of the Equal Opportunity Policy which lists the identities the policy protects appears as follow:
Agnes Scott College is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our College Policy is to recruit, employ, and promote the best possible talent in all positions without regard to age, sex, race, religion, color, national origin, disability, or veterans of the Vietnam War.
After detailing the procedures that employees should take to seek and apply for positions, the statement recommends that “Employees are encouraged to refer minority applicants to the Office of Human Resources for all posted positions,” providing additional reinforcement that employed members of the campus community abide by the policy.
The 2004 publication of the statement appears as the Equal Employment Opportunity policy appears as follows:
To provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all individuals, employment decisions at Agnes Scott College will be based on merit, qualifications, and abilities. ASC does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, gender identity and gender expression or any other characteristic protected by the law. […]
Employees are encouraged to refer qualified applicants, including all minority applicants, to the Office of Human Resources for all posted positions.
Employees with questions or concerns about any type of discrimination in the workplace are encouraged to bring these issues to the attention of their immediate supervisor or the Office of Human Resources. Employees can raise concerns and make reports without fear of reprisal. Anyone found to be engaging in any type of unlawful discrimination will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
This version of the policy has been considerably revised. The criteria sought after in employees is more specifically qualified – from “the best possible talent” to “merit, qualifications, and abilities.” This development concretizes “talent” into more tangible and quantifiable measurements.
What's more, the list of identities enumerated in the 2004 version of the policy has been expanded in ways that are important for the acknowledgement and protection of certain invisiblized queer people; added to the list are sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, and gender expression. Though the progress made in the Equal Employment Opportunity policy is commendable, the need remains for the protection of those identities elided in the Discrimination or Harassment policy.
Agnes Scott Staff Leave Policy
Agnes Scott College’s policy on leave for staff and faculty members is largely influenced by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), though the wording of the handbook implies that it has been customized for the college as well. In order for a staff member to be eligible for leave, they must have worked for the college for 12 months or 52 weeks, though these don’t have to be consecutive. Leave is granted for the birth or adoption of a child (both female and male employees are eligible), a serious health condition of the employee, or to take care of a family member’s serious illness. Family member is defined as the faculty or staff member's spouse, sponsored "domestic partner," daughter, son, parent or individual who served as legal guardian and primary-care giver, when the faculty or staff member was a child. A "parent" is any individual who assumed the day-to day and financial responsibility for the faculty or staff member when the faculty member was a child.
While this current policy is quite good, the previous staff handbook, from 1999, lacks the term “domestic partner” in its coverage; the language “husband and wife” is still used. When speaking with Karen Gilbert, she made it clear how proud she was of the fact that Agnes Scott implemented paternity leave years before many other employers did. One “catch” present in the policy is that if both parents are employed by Agnes Scott College, they can only take 12 weeks of combined leave, 8 weeks paid and 4 weeks unpaid. This might suggest some problematic ideas about child rearing, suggesting that the presence of two parents is not important for a new child. This also does not take into account any possible birth complications necessitating more extensive leave, though I do think that Agnes Scott would be flexible in cases such as that.
The Agnes Scott policies we have looked at all seem to be quite inclusive, though I would say that that is expected. Though we were unable to get hold of a staff handbook from before 1999, Agnes Scott policies from the last eleven years have been rather impressive. I was informed that some changes were being discussed for the staff handbook, but it was heavily implied that the particular policies I was researching.
Development of Health Insurance Policies
Employee health insurance policies are a powerful sign of whether a work place validates or makes invisible certain types of families. Agnes Scott's health insurance policies have shown slight but significant evolution in the institution's recognition of queer families.
We were given access to four different versions of faculty and staff handbooks in the College's recent history: the faculty handbooks from 1996-1997 and from 1997-1998 (both archival copies in the possession of the college's faculty services office), the personnel handbook from 1999 (made available to us by the college library's archivist), and the current employee handbook issued in 2004 which can be found online through the Human Resources link on the college's intranet website.
In each of these handbooks, the relevant policies for an analysis of the historical development of the college's health insurance polices included, from the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 handbook, the term life insurance policy and the medical insurance policy; from the 1997-1998 handbook, the term life insurance policy, the medical insurance policy, the dental insurance policy, and the vision insurance policy; from the 1999 handbook, the health insurance policy and the life insurance policy; and from the 2004 handbook, the health insurance policy, the life insurance policy, the dental insurance policy and the vision insurance policy.
The 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 faculty handbooks, both health and life insurance policies remain unchanged. In both policies, half-time and full-time faculty member eligibility for life and health insurance options are explained and methods of payment are elaborated. The life insurance policy states that “Coverage is also available for spouse and children,” a choice of wording which leaves invisible non-legally binding queer relationships, which may nevertheless be as committed as legalized marriages. Similarly in the medical insurance policy, dependents are defined loosely as spouse and children: “If eligible dependents are to be covered by Agnes Scott College health insurance, dependents must be enrolled when the faculty member is hired, or when dependents first become eligible (i.e. marriage, new birth).” For “dependent” in this case to mean life-partner, it seems a faculty member would have to declare them at the time of hiring, because “marriage” and “new birth” are the only relational developments in a person's life which the policy is technically required to recognize.
As for the dental and vision plans, there is a slight alteration in the articulation of the policy between the 1997-1998 faculty handbook and the 2004 employee handbook. The 1997-1998 policy on both dental and vision stipulates that “Eligible participants wishing to have family members covered by the Agnes Scott plan will pay the difference between employee coverage and the two-party or family rate.” This policy articulation appears to subject employees to an external validation process of what constitutes a family member; no definition of “family” is given. In the 2004 articulations of the these plans, the wording has been changed: “Agnes Scott College's dental-insurance plan provides employees and their dependents access to dental- insurance benefits.” This change from “family” to “dependents” takes the emphasis off of legal or otherwise arbitrary definitions of “family” which might not include queer relationships and emphasizes instead a more practical specification of relationship – dependency, or the sharing or resources.
Perhaps the insurance policy of greatest concern to many employees is the health insurance policy. The relevant policies from each handbook are the medical insurance policy (which is the same in both the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 handbooks), the health insurance policies of 1999 and 2004 respectively. From 1996-1998, the faculty handbook specified medical insurance plans as providing “protection of faculty members and their families.” “Family” in this context as well is left vague and undefined, and, as was discussed earlier, is juxtaposed with the definition of dependents as being validated by the marriage or birth. In the 1999 publication of the policy, the wording about protection of “employees and their families” has not changed. However, a significant recognition of queer families was built into the policy:
If eligible dependents are to be covered by Agnes Scott College health insurance, dependents MUST be enrolled when the employee is hired, or when dependents first become eligible, i.e. marriage, new birth, or other approved “life style change.” Proof of a “life style change” will have to be provided to the Office of Human Resources in order to apply for coverage.
This evolution from “marriage” and “new birth” to “other approved 'life style change' evidences Human Resources recognition of the narrowness of earlier qualifications of family and dependency. This wording of “life style change” stands in the 2004 articulation of the policy as well. Despite this evolution, other articulations in the same policy leave queer families invisible as before. In the statement on the deduction of premiums, the policy states: “The employee can only cancel or change coverage during annual Open Enrollment, with the exception of certain 'qualifying events,' such as marriage, new birth or dependent child becoming ineligible.” Here, as in the 1996-1998 policy statements, the ways that queer families might qualify are left unarticulated, leaving queer people in committed long-term relationships unclear about the status of their benefits in relation to their partners.
Similarly, the stipulation that the “life style change” must be proven to the Office of Human Resources places a burden on queer families to provide ambiguous legitimate proof of their relationships. The lack of clarity in this policy shows the marginalization of queer people from traditional standards of what constitutes family; while it may be easy for a traditionally married couple to provide a marriage certificate to HR, queer couples (and certain heterosexual unmarried but committed couples) might have to jump through hoops or find means of formally proving their relationship which don't fit their preferences or lifestyles in order to receive benefits.
Ultimately, though Agnes Scott's health insurance policy development in the last 14 years shows important evolution in the recognition of queer families, the full acknowledgement of the variety of family and dependency relationships that can be embodied by queer relationships of all races, classes and national origins are left unarticulated.
Thoughts of Two Queer Agnes Scott Employees
Disclaimer: The two Agnes Scott employees interviewed will remain anonymous. One identifies as a gay male and one identifies as a lesbian.
Both employees state feeling safe about being out at Agnes Scott, and gave the impression of being quite pleased with the policies and benefits in place for faculty and staff currently. One of the interviewees stated that “We have come a long way,” implying that things were not always as inclusive as they are now.
Both employees also felt that Agnes Scott had no policies on the books that perpetuated queer discrimination, though one of the people interviewed felt that the queer culture at Agnes Scott is largely invisible. The employee also mentioned that he is disappointed in Agnes Scott’s shyness over openly welcoming gay and lesbian students, President Kiss’s lack of ever saying the word “lesbian” in a welcoming speech, and the thus far failure to feature an out of the closet queer writer in the Writers’ Festival, something I myself hadn’t realized.
Obviously Agnes Scott still has some distance to cover, but both employees gave the distinct impression of feeling safe at Agnes Scott to be open with their identities, and supported at a policy level.
Interview with Kijua Sanders-McMurtry
Kijua Sanders-McMurtry is one of the most loved student advocates on campus. She has been working at the college since 2006, first as the director of multicultural affairs until 2008 and then as the associate dean of students and the special assistant to the president on diversity, which positions she currently holds. As the special assistant to the president on diversity, she advises the president and her board on diversity issues, “such as trans policy, social class, anything”
She describes the advocacy of typically marginalized groups as being her “passion” for much of her life. This passion no doubt is what has made her a crucial figure in certain movements on campus in the last several years, such as the revamping of the Safe Zone program, the TransGender Task Force, and Affinity, the super-vibrant queer people of color student organization on campus. Because there is no formal queer organization on campus for faculty and staff, and thus no formal mechanism through which we could contact queer faculty and staff, Kijua, as a visible administrative leader and queer advocate on campus, was an important figure for us to turn to in investigating the experiences of queer faculty and staff. Though she can not speak for the queer employees on campus, her position on diversity forums related to Safe Zone and Trans Policy, her characteristic openness, and her experience as an advocate for marginalized groups have made her someone who has had varied contact with queer employees and who has discussed with them important policy issues which affect them.
“What is very interesting is that there are not a lot of queer faculty and staff;” Kijua described the atmosphere on campus for the queer faculty and staff she has talked with as in some ways supportive, but not perfect. We discussed what she means by the word “out,” and she described the position many faculty and staff members are in of not necessarily being closeted, but not disclosing their “queer” status to their students or other people they work with. In other words, while for a few faculty and staff members, being queer may be something they discuss with their classes or co-workers, but for others, being queer is not something they make public at the college. She described her experience as a black women in her first couple years at the college, and the way that black students would often seek her out as an ally or mentor because she was one of the few black faculty, comparing this experience to what queer employees might expect go through if they were to make their queer identities public; some people just might not be interested in that kind of participation in the public life of the college.
One interesting development she brought up in our conversation was the discussion amongst queer faculty and staff members about creating a queer faculty and staff group on campus, which may start out as a social group and could evolve into a group with a particular agenda or policy concerns. This is an exciting development, as currently there are no formal advocacy or support groups on campus for employees of the college. She said that discussions about such a group have been going on for about the last two years, and there are certain faculty and staff members who have a definite interest in the creation of such a group. It's no guarantee yet, but along with growth of the Safe Zone program and the vibrant Trans Policy activism on campus, it's no doubt that the founding of such a group would contribute to the excitement of the ethos surrounding queer advocacy on Agnes Scott's campus in 2010.
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