Worthless Drivel

Published in The Princeton Progressive Nation, February 2009.

For most students, university is a time of unprecedented freedom and independence. As newly-minted adults, we make our own decisions about what courses to take and what to major in; what social activities we engage in and what curfews we impose upon ourselves; whom we associate with; even choices as basic as what to eat and when. And yet, at Princeton, our university administration does not see fit to accord us what otherwise might seem one of the basic rights of independence: the freedom to choose whom to live with.

Although all freshmen fill out a housing form that indicates some preferences, and in subsequent years students may enter room draw with groups of their choice, Princeton still requires that all one’s roommates and suitemates be of the same sex. Unlike an increasing number of colleges across the country, Princeton has no policy for undergraduate gender-neutral housing, whereby students could elect to live in mixed-gender rooms. As the only Ivy League university whose administration has never actively considered a gender-neutral housing policy, Princeton lags shamefully behind the times. At this point, Princeton’s only appropriate course of action would be to change its housing policy, exemplifying the same trust in the maturity of the student body that is associated with so much else at this university.

Upon first consideration, a gender-neutral housing policy might seem to have only limited appeal. But it is important to remember that gender-neutral housing is the logical conclusion of the principles of sex integration that have pervaded this university and broader culture in the past 50 or so years. It was once considered inappropriate for a man and woman to spend any unsupervised time together, but now many young men and women in the real world live together in mixed-gender groups, and it would be ridiculous for any landlord to require otherwise. Similarly, Princeton is no longer a single-sex university, nor one with few women who must be housed in a specially-designated building with strict visitation rules (as was the case in Princeton’s earliest days of coeducation). Princeton does not segregate men and women in any other way—not in classrooms, in extracurricular activities, nor in any other aspect of housing and dining. Now that we have our first freshman class in which the male-to-female ratio is perfectly balanced, it is time to bring coeducation to its logical conclusion, allowing all students to make their own choices about whom to room with—just as young adults do in the real world.

It is important to remember, too, that gender-neutral housing can serve a vital role for certain minority populations in the Princeton community who are marginalized by the current policy. It is insulting to transgender students to require them to live with roommates who match their biological sex, as if their gender identity did not matter. It is difficult and uncomfortable for many gay, lesbian, and bisexual students to live with roommates with whom they might experience sexual tension, or from whom they might fear instances of homophobia. It is in violation of Princeton’s non-discrimination policy, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, to overlook the concerns of the LGBT community in this regard.

Gender-neutral housing is often dismissed as a logistical nightmare by those worried about its implementation, but it is important to note that more and more universities—including the majority of the Ivy League—are now adopting gender-neutral policies. According to their respective housing websites, among the Ivies, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania have the most progressive policies, allowing students to opt into gender-neutral housing beginning in their sophomore year, with very few restrictions. Columbia, Dartmouth, and Harvard allow students to live in mixed-gender suites and apartments, but not individual rooms. Cornell will be running a pilot program for a small group of upperclassmen beginning in fall 2009, and in April 2008 Yale established a committee to explore implementing gender-neutral housing. (Efforts were made to reach officials at these universities for further information about their policies, but few responded to requests for comment.)

The most recent developments at Yale provoked several Daily Princetonian articles last spring, but little else. However, it is easy to see that a gender-neutral option like those at Brown and Penn could be implemented at Princeton, given the similarity of the room draw system. It requires no great logistical restructuring to accept that members of a group intending to live together in a room or suite could be either single-sex or mixed-sex. All it requires is the acceptance of the notion that Princeton students are adults, capable of making their own decisions about whom to live with.

While it would indeed be momentous progress if Princeton were to imitate either Brown’s or Penn’s policies, this form of progress is still not an ideal solution. By sanctioning gender-neutral housing starting in sophomore year, Brown and Penn—and all the other Ivies with gender-neutral policies, for that matter—effectively discriminate against a quarter of the undergraduate student population. Given that freshmen, most of whom are over the age of 18, are legally able to make independent choices, it seems unreasonable that university policy should hold them to a different standard—particularly since scandalous implications do not arise from 18-year-olds living in mixed-sex groups in the real world. Additionally, LGBT freshmen face the same concerns with single-sex rooms that LGBT upperclassmen do, and their age does not make these issues any less legitimate. This is a primary concern for LGBT advocates at Penn: Erin Cross, the associate director of Penn’s LGBT Center, wrote in an email that transgender students who wish to be assigned a roommate of the same gender identity must “contact the housing office and go through a special process involving folks from College Houses and Academic Services (CHAS), Houses and Conference Services (HCS), and the LGBT Center”—quite clearly a complicated and stressful process for a newly-matriculated freshman unfamiliar with the university bureaucracy.

This is the first item to tackle on the Penn LGBT Center’s gender issues list, but Princeton could also lead the way in implementing such a policy. Just as Princeton allows incoming freshmen to elect to live on a single-sex floor or in substance-free housing, the freshman housing form could include an option to indicate a preference for a male roommate, a female roommate, or no preference. This would require no more logistical restructuring than offering the option to upperclassmen; presumably it would not be overly complicated for a computer program to display only the subset of students who elected to live with opposite-sex roommates and then match them together. If Princeton publicized this option well, it might even end up being a draw for students who might otherwise consider going to a college with a more liberal reputation, like Bennington or Reed—or, indeed, Brown or Penn.

Such a policy change would undoubtedly provoke alarm from panicked parents who do not want their children rooming with members of the opposite sex, conservative groups on campus concerned about the morality of couples in opposite-sex relationships rooming together, or alumni who simply don’t know what the world is coming to. However, none of these are particularly valid concerns if a gender-neutral housing policy is implemented responsibly. In the first place, no gender-neutral system requires students to live with members of the opposite sex; the freedom of choice implied by such a plan means that students can elect to live with either a same- or an opposite-sex roommate. Policies such as Brown’s and Penn’s (and, presumably, the policy that Princeton would adopt) stipulate that any group electing to live in a mixed-gender room or suite must fill all the available beds so that no one will be assigned to a mixed-gender room against their wishes. Even in the case of freshmen, it would be possible to check a gender-neutral box or leave it unchecked, and students could feel free to consult with their parents as to their choice—although it should again be emphasized that most college students are adults and should therefore be able to make their own living choices.

This fact holds even when the specter of sexual relations is raised. Historically speaking, men and women have been segregated on the basis of some perceived sexual indecency implied by their joint association. In last year’s Daily Princetonian coverage of Yale’s discussion of gender-neutral housing, John Hwang ‘09, president of the Anscombe Society, expressed the concern “that couples would ‘enter into this housing program with the intent of leading a sexually active life,’ … allowing ’sexually permissive [lifestyles] with institutional sanction.’” This is conceivable, but it should not be considered a limiting factor to gender-neutral housing. In the first place, just about every college-age person has both male and female friends, and so it is thus unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that one’s roommate of choice would necessarily be one’s sexual partner. Doing so is just as ridiculous as assuming that someone’s same-sex roommate of choice is his or her sexual partner, which is an assumption almost never made in the Princeton community. Furthermore, under the present system, same-sex couples are in fact free to make their own choices about whether to room with their significant others. Not only has the sky not fallen at the threat of this immorality in the making, it indicates that young adults are capable of separating their sexual and their nonsexual relationships, and making responsible choices about whether they’re ready to take the step of living with a significant other.

We do not live any longer in a fantasy land where sexual relationships between consenting adults do not exist, or where we can prevent them by dividing men’s and women’s living spaces. We no longer confuse platonic relationships between men and women with sexual ones, and obliviousness to the needs of LGBT students is no longer condoned. Outside the Orange Bubble, it is accepted that men and women will interact naturally in their lives, be it in a professional, a social, or a domestic environment. The real world has, for the most part, acknowledged that no scandalous implications by definition ensue from consenting adults inhabiting a mixed-gender living space, and that doing so is not substantially different from living in a same-sex environment—as Julia Marcus, a graduate of Wesleyan University, said of her college’s gender-neutral housing policy. She wrote in an email that rooming with male friends from sophomore year onwards “wasn’t a particularly positive or negative experience—and that’s kind of the point. The gender of my roommates never made much of a difference to me, and I appreciate that Wesleyan let me make those decisions for myself.”

Now it is time for Princeton to make the same admission. This university professes a deep commitment to diversity, gender equality, and a host of very forward-looking principles concerning how to treat the young adults who make up the undergraduate community. Let Princeton, therefore, become a leader in extending a gender-neutral housing option to all its students, regardless of their class year or any other demographic status. Princeton, given its nationwide prominence, is in a position to do a great deal to demonstrate that young adults can be trusted to make their own decisions—not just about academics, extracurriculars, or what to do on a Saturday night, but about the gender of their roommates too.