Shortly before the start of the 2013-2014 school year, faculty and staff members at Santa Clara University, a mid-sized Jesuit institution in Silicon Valley, received a letter that stunned them.
According to the letter, the university had reviewed the health insurance policies offered to employees and chose to drop coverage of elective abortion procedures, effective immediately.
The university’s decision sparked an uproar, setting off a petition drive and unwanted media spotlight on the college.
“No one I know saw this coming,” says a still-testy Dr. Linda Garber, an associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Santa Clara University. “We got the letter in the mail saying it had been done. Generally speaking, a lot of this would have been done through the university’s governance or benefits committee.”
Faculty and staff at Providence College, a Catholic college located near downtown Providence, R.I., received equally surprising news about their benefits during the previous academic year when the administration announced it was ending coverage of certain birth control procedures.
“For many years, voluntary birth control had been included in health care,” says Dr. Fred Drogula, an associate professor of history and president of the faculty senate at Providence College. “What they said was that it was never supposed to be covered and, when they learned that a mistake had been made, they canceled it.”
