Although recent media coverage on Columbia College Student Council’s proposal for gender-neutral housing has focused on concerns about couples living together, supporters emphasize that the core issue of the initiative is equality—regardless of gender and sexual preference.
“Gender-neutral housing is important because it affirms a wide range of lifestyles of college students,” said Jeffrey Chang, cofounder and associate director of the National Student Genderblind Campaign.
Currently, about 25-30 colleges and universities across the nation offer coed dorm rooms, although many more schools offer coed suites, floors, and dormitories, according to Chang. His organization has worked with more than 50 schools on housing and discrimination issues.
“We ultimately see a trend towards having the policy at more and more colleges,” Chang said.
The proposal is “about giving students the opportunity to live with whomever they feel comfortable … without gender binaries of being male and female,” said Sarah Weiss, CCSC vice president of policy.
Student action on gender-neutral housing got its start at Barnard in spring of 2009. While the idea came from Q, a queer community organization at Barnard, and from LGBT groups at Columbia, it was the Student Government Association that drafted and passed the first resolution calling for gender-neutral housing. Barnard originally worked with the Diversity Committee and used input from Q and Columbia LGBT groups to draft the proposal. Janelle Batta, who spearheaded the movement at Barnard, then reached out to Columbia students.
“They [SGA] had policies that they were interested in but they were also looking for support from across the street in CCSC and ESC,” said Learned Foote, CC ’11 and CCSC junior class president.
He eventually brought the proposal to the council.
CCSC started looking into the issue during the summer and started researching and meeting with administrators this semester.
But the implementation of the program at Barnard hinges upon Columbia’s participation, as the only way Barnard women could dorm with men would be through the housing relationship with
Columbia, explained Matt Kingston, associate director for Housing Operations at Barnard. “Because Barnard moved a little quicker and passed the resolution first, it became clear that because of the way that the Barnard-Columbia exchange was set up that it was necessary for Columbia to have a sign-off on wanting to implement this, prior to knowing whether or not Barnard would allow for similar changes in policy,” he said.
While many have voiced concerns about couples living together and the logistical problems that this would present, not all administrators are as concerned. Kingston emphasizes the fact that LGBT students at Barnard may already be living together as couples, which he says he discourages them from doing. He also says that concerns about gender-neutral housing will not be much of an added constraint to problems that housing already faces.
Kingston added, “The concern that Barnard would have about implementing it would be similar to the concerns we already have about male Columbia students that can be pulled into selecting a suite at Barnard—we already have concerns about what we do when Barnard students want a male roommate but those students go abroad for the spring, leaving that male student they pulled into the suite.”
Even if couples choose to live together and then break up, some students feel that what happens is none of the University’s business.
“I think that people over the age of 18 are capable of living with the people they want,” Nathan Ratapu, CC ’13, said. “If they weren’t coming to school already, they could be living in housing where they are living with someone of the opposite gender and it could be completely platonic.”
“As long as the students all agree to it and they’re happy with it, it’s their choice,” said Jina Lim, CC ’13.
The implementation of gender-neutral housing started this decade, perhaps as a result of changing social trends.
“More than ever, students are far likely to have a best friend that happens to be of a different sex or gender,” Chang said. “Parents are so aghast to hear such a policy at their son’s or daughter’s colleges, but they don’t recognize that this is on television.”
But even so, Chang says that gender-neutral housing may not fit at all schools. “Schools should make their decisions based on what they feel is the most supportive and welcoming environment for their students,” he said. “We don’t feel that every school should have gender-neutral housing, but we feel that students should be able to make a case for it, and students have made a case for it.”
Last February, The State University of New York at Geneseo became the first SUNY branch to institute a gender-neutral housing policy, in the form of a “pilot” dormitory in which students began to live this fall. One residence hall allows students to share bathrooms, a common area, and dorm rooms.
Last spring, a resolution from the Yale student body that proposed a gender-neutral housing policy was struck down by administrators for the 2009-2010 school year. Students staged a “sleep-in” in which they protested the decision handed down by the administration by setting up and staying in tents on the university’s quad.
Princeton is implementing gender-neutral suites in one of its residence halls next year. Emily Rutherford, a Princeton sophomore, led the effort that started last spring. “Virtually everyone has been really positive and saying an issue like this is common sense and it’s something that should happen,” she said.
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