I write to you as President of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations to amplify a message you may have already received from the Berkeley Faculty Association.

The University of California is a leader in academic excellence, innovative research, and advancing progressive ideals. Nonetheless, our existing health benefits for fertility treatments challenge the campus’s commitment to gender equity and faculty welfare. Expanding those benefits is the right thing to do for our community. It will bring the University in line with its competitors so that it can continue to recruit faculty who can enhance its excellence in research and teaching. Currently, the University of California lags behind many peer institutions in this area. As a result, our university misses the opportunity to offer competitive benefits, attract the best and most diverse pool of candidates, and retain top faculty.

Despite being officially classified as a disease, infertility is one of the major medical conditions that is routinely undercovered, an archaic holdover rooted in a long history of unequal access to adequate medical care for women and LGBTQ+ people. Fertility treatments may be needed by women and men, whether they are in heterosexual or samesex relationships, as well as transmen and genderqueer persons.The age of parents has been rising for some time; the changing nature of the labor market within the academy, and the demands of those on the tenure track, accentuates the tendency to delay parenthood. Furthermore, there is no one path to parenthood. Many make this decision in dialogue with health care providers, and depending on factors including their health status, may require medical care to address fertility, become pregnant, or carry to term. Because a diversity of faculty and their covered partners may require fertility treatments, this is an issue that significantly impacts the entire faculty.

The small number who ultimately use fertility treatments bear a huge financial and emotional burden. Those who require fertility treatment are often in their thirties and forties when salaries are least able to bear the costs, an issue exacerbated by the Bay Area’s exorbitant real estate market and the high cost of childcare. It is unfair that those seeking medically necessary treatments face these stressors and financial obstacles, and it seriously undermines the university’s commitment to faculty equity and welfare. Comprehensive fertility benefits could empower junior faculty, female professors and administrators, transmen, and same-sex couples to confidently manage their career pathways and better manage the “baby penalty.” Expanding fertility benefits would reflect our campus’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

While there are many different forms of fertility treatments and medications, their costs have escalated in recent years.  To give just one example, a single round of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) costs between $12,000-$20,000 (usually more than two cycles are required), and that does not include the expenses associated with fertilization (ICSI) and genetic (PGS) testing, which are recommended to maximize success and cost an additional $8,000 per cycle. Medications are also an additional expense ($2,000-$6,000). None of the university’s existing health plans provide coverage of IVF. They also exclude Zygote Intrafallopian Transfer (ZIFT). As you can see from the summary of existing plans below, Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer (GIFT) is the only form of assisted reproductive technology to be covered in a single plan (UC Blue and Gold) under limited conditions. Ironically the UC PPO plan that is most expensive for faculty provides the least amount of coverage for fertility treatments. The most comprehensive plans, Kaiser and UC Blue and Gold, provide just 50% coinsurance of a limited range of treatments. For instance, the Kaiser plan covers artificial insemination (IUI) at 50%, but this does not include the cost of donor sperm. Moreover, patients often need upwards of six cycles to achieve pregnancy. This shifts significant costs to the patient for a procedure that is less successful than other treatments (success rate 4-13%, depending on age), such as IVF (8-54%).

Although state law mandates insurance companies to provide fertility treatment benefits there are wide variations in the coverage provided by plans offered by employers. Many large employers, especially the tech and finance sectors so prevalent in the Bay Area, now routinely offer employees generous coverage for fertility treatments, including for IVF. Even Starbucks provides all their employees (including part-time staff) access to IVF (with funds up to $25,000, plus $10,000 for related medications).  Universities around the country, public and private alike, have also recognized that to recruit and retain the best faculty they have to provide affordable access to fertility treatments. If we just take the most expensive of these treatments, IVF, we can see how far behind the University of California has fallen behind its competitors.  Yale provides full coverage of 4 rounds of IVF plus $20,000 for related expenses, Harvard covers 6 cycles, Princeton and Rutgers 4, Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland provide full coverage up to $100,000, and Brown covers 80% of costs.

We believe that the University of California should be at the forefront of providing family support benefits and fertility treatments to its employees, not lagging behind other large employers in the state or its academic competitors around the country.  Comprehensive fertility benefits could empower faculty and administrators to confidently manage and build the families and careers they want at the University of California.  We urge you to advocate for these changes with UCOP either by extending the treatments available in our existing plans or by adopting a specialized plan for fertility benefits as some other large employers do.

Sincerely,

Constance Penley, CUCFA President, Professor of Film and Media Studies UC Santa Barbara