It’s over.

After nine years of lawsuits, protests and accusations of bigotry, Pitt will… It’s over.

After nine years of lawsuits, protests and accusations of bigotry, Pitt will provide equal benefits to the domestic partners of its employees, homosexual and heterosexual alike.

In his annual letter to the University community, Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg wrote today that Pitt will “begin offering health insurance benefits for the sames-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners of its eligible employees.”

RayAnne Lockard, a Pitt employee and one of the plaintiffs in the 1996 case brought by Deborah Henson when the University refused to provide such benefits, said that she was pleased about the ruling, and that she could begin a new relationship with Pitt.

“I see it as a beginning,” she said. “I don’t see it as an end.”

The benefits can take effect with an Affidavit of Domestic Partnership signed by both parties, and will become available January 1, 2005.

See tomorrow’s full story in The Pitt News for more details.