In the fall of 1979, the Staff Personnel Board of the University of California solicited ideas for improving its employee benefits plans. Warren's resulting first presentation laid out the discriminatory effect of the then-current programs and proposed a domestic partnership path to eligibility. Written by Brougham and Warren only a few weeks after the first letters to the City of Berkeley, the First UC Presentation and a Supplement expand on the content of the earlier documents, ratcheting up the arguments and rhetoric.
On September 17, 1979, the Berkeley Gazette carried the first known press coverage of the Domestic Partnership proposal.
The Staff Personnel Board conveyed its rejection of the proposal in a letter dated February 22, 1980. The basis of the rejection outlined in the letter missed entirely the substance of the issues.
The key ideas in the Appeal are 1) that the University misattributed their own ideas to Warren and Brougham and failed to address the core issue they raised, 2) that UC unreasonably postulated other groups that would have to be accommodated if same-sex couples were made eligible, and 3) that UC's projected costs were grossly inflated without any foundation. It also more fully counters excuses that UC might try to use justify non-action. The Second Presentation also adds two new requests for UC action: 1) to grant access to UC recreational facilities to domestic partners, and 2) to adopt an explicit, internal UC policy of non-discrimination on the basi of sexual orientation.