Loyola University • New Orleans • Volume 93 • Issue 12 • Nov. 21, 2014
THE MAROON FOR A GREATER LOYOLA
PROPOSAL FOR PROGRESS Loyola’s faculty senate has approved a proposal that could extend equal benefits to homosexual employees
By Colleen Dulle mcdulle@loyno.edu @Colleen_Maroon
The faculty senate approved a proposal encouraging the university to extend the same employee benefits to same-sex couples as heterosexual couples. On Nov. 13, The Fringe Benefit Committee, which gives feedback on the university’s employee benefit policies, proposed that the faculty express their support for a policy change. Chuck Nichols, Fringe Benefit Committee and faculty senate member, said that after some “vigorous discussion,” the Senate passed the motion with overwhelming support. “It was very encouraging to see the level of support for a policy of equality,” Nichols said. The university administration can choose whether or not it will put the proposal into action. Nichols said he is hopeful that the administration will see the benefits of changing Loyola’s policy. “It will make our university stronger, and most importantly, it is the right thing to do,” Nichols said. Due to the university’s Catholic identity, there was some debate about whether giving same-sex couples these benefits was the right thing to do. The Catholic Church does not recognize same-sex marriages as legitimate. The Rev. Ed Vacek, S.J. and Stephen J. Duffy, department chair in Catholic Studies and a longtime sexual ethics professor, presented a nine-page note to the faculty senate opposing the original proposal and presenting a different one. Vacek’s proposal suggested that
Loyola follow the example of Georgetown University, another Jesuit school. Georgetown, his proposal said, provides health benefits for any adult of the employee’s choosing and who is also in that employee’s household. Members of the faculty senate deemed this proposal too costly, opting instead to approve benefits for “all spouses and domestic partners of benefit-eligible Loyola University employees,” the proposal said. Ultimately, Vacek did not approve of the motion that passed, because it supported domestic partnerships in addition to legally-married couples. Vacek said that Loyola should remain neutral on same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships. “The present Senate proposal, however, seems proactively to foster such relationships,” Vacek said. Naomi Yavneh Klos, director of the University Honors Program, said that the final proposal fit the social justice component of Loyola’s Jesuit mission. “Our Ignatian values teach us that it is our obligation to stand in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed,” Yavneh said. Yavneh said that because the university supports legally-married spouses who have been divorced and remarried, which the Catholic Church does not recognize as legitimate marriage, the school should also support same-sex couples. “When Jesus changes the water into wine at the wedding feast, I don’t see him doing a background check on the bride and groom,” Yavneh said.
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Over 1,000 sex crimes remain uninvestigated By Alex Kennon agkennon@loyno.edu @agkennon
New Orleans Police Department is under fire after a report by the city’s inspector general revealed that over 1,000 sex crimes had not been properly investigated. The report focused on five detectives in the special victims unit who failed to adequately investigate and document the majority of sexual assault and child abuse cases they were assigned over the course of a three-year period. The investigation of these officers came as the result of a May 2014 audit performed by the Office of Inspector General’s Audit Division. Howard Shwartz, assistant inspector general for investigations, said he conducted a detailed investigation of the five detectives after reviewing the 90 random rape cases that were pulled for the audit. “I reviewed those 90 completely random rape cases, and in those, I found a number of things that were disturbing, to say the least,” Shwartz said. “We went on and looked at 100 percent of their work because if I found these things in the random selection, what were we going to find if we did a complete review of everything they did?” The answer was an inordinate amount of deficient detective work. According to the report released last Wednesday, NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau identified 1,290 sex crime related calls that were assigned to the five detectives over the course of a three-year period. Of those cases only 179, or 14 percent, contained any supplemental reports documenting investigative efforts beyond the brief initial report. No reports at all were written in 840 of the cases, which detectives simply classified as miscellaneous. In 271 cases that were designated as potential sex crimes, the five detectives either failed to provide documentation of investigative efforts or provided questionable documentation. NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison has designated Commander Paul Noel to head a task force to review these 271 mishandled cases. Schwartz said that NOPD has asked him to do a follow up on this work to ensure the public that an independent investigator finds it satisfactory. “It’s kind of unusual, but by asking me to do that, it says to me that they really are going to do it right,” Schwartz said. “Because I’m going to do the same thing I did, and if the work’s not there, I’ll do the same report and we’ll be in the same spot.” The Inspector General Report did not identify the detectives by name, referring to them only as Detectives A, B, C, D and E. NOPD later identified them as Akron Davis, Merrell Merricks, Derrick Williams, Damita Williams and Vernon Haynes. All of the accused detectives remain on the force, though according to NOPD, all five have been placed on desk duty.
See SEX CRIMES, page 4