Michael E. Engh during his 2009 inauguration as president of Santa Clara University. (Dai Sugano/Mercury News)
SANTA CLARA -- The flap over Santa Clara University's decision to drop health insurance coverage of elective abortions continued to resonate Friday on the Jesuit campus as a well-regarded faculty member resigned from the school's ethics center.
Stephen Diamond, an associate professor of law, said he decided to cut ties to the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics -- where he is also an ethics scholar -- because he believes the center and its director, Kirk Hanson, are acting as an arm of the president's office.
Hanson was among three university faculty members who this week coordinated two forums for faculty and staff to discuss what many think was a unilateral decision by SCU President Michael Engh to change abortion insurance coverage without seeking their input.
Engh's office has said the Jesuit priest contacted about 30 employees before Oct. 3, when he mailed letters to 1,600 university employees notifying them of his decision, which he stated is in line with "our core commitments as a Catholic university.''
Engh was attending a board of trustees meeting in Carmel on Friday, and his office declined to comment.
Diamond, who alerted Hanson in an email Thursday night that he was parting ways with the ethics center, also told Hanson that he believed the question of abortion should be resolved by a woman and her doctor. And he was opposed to important decisions that affect the university being made without engaging faculty and staff.
"In light, then, of my support of a woman's right to choose and my support and belief in shared governance and in light of the role the Markkula Center is playing in imposing this decision on our community, I no longer believe my views of what is considered ethical and those of the Center are in agreement and thus I am tendering my resignation as an Ethics Scholar at the Center,'' Diamond wrote.
In a statement issued Friday afternoon, Hanson said he was sorry to lose Diamond.
"He is a thoughtful scholar, and like many others on the campus, has been searching for a way to express his disagreement with the recent health insurance decision. I believe the two meetings I co-hosted this week allowed all faculty and staff to register their opposition and might lead to a better way to handle such decisions in the future."
Diamond said that the central mission of universities and their affiliated centers and departments is the pursuit of knowledge. He added that the ethics center was playing a different role beyond co-hosting an event to discuss, debate or learn more about the issues of abortion or governance or both.
While Diamond did not attend either forum, he said he felt the center was in his view "playing a role that was essentially rolling out the policy.''
In a follow-up email to Hanson and others, Diamond also said that there is "nothing about the Engh decision that is not reversible or amenable to amendment.'' Nearly 600 members of the university community have signed an online petition asking to appeal the decision.
Diamond also pointed to a decision this month by the trustees of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, another Jesuit school that decided not to provide coverage for elective abortions, but agreed to offer employees a separate, unsubsidized plan to cover those procedures.
Contact Tracy Seipel at tseipel@mercurynews.com or 408 275-0140 and follow her at Twitter.com/taseipel.
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