Earlier in the month, the big news on campus was the new mixed gender housing policy adopted by the Student Assembly. While much has been made of the policy by the forces-that-be on campus, notwithstanding criticism of the underhanded, under-the-table, and shamefully non-transparent method by which the SA passed the bill (especially by this paper), nowhere has there been published criticism of the policy itself. This policy allows students to live with roommates of any sex in all campus housing. The implications for traditionally-minded students are immense.
However, this is not the first time this policy has been attempted. Waaaaay back in autumn 2007, before any current undergrads were on campus, SA Resolution 3 made West Campus suites available as “no-gender”. This pilot program was cancelled last March due to low demand.
When the pilot program was cancelled, SA representative Ulysses Smith ’13 theorized in a Sun report that low demand for the program, “…could be attributable to the fact that the [opportunities are] just not well-known.” It is almost unthinkable that the LGBT organizations on campus would not make every effort to promote this policy—a great victory for their movement—to their constituents. However, they blame the program’s failure on a simple lack of awareness. Was it not their role to raise that awareness? Is it possible they are admitting their own failure as leaders of their community? It is a tried and true liberal tactic to fault the people rather than the policy. A most striking example of this was the 2004 presidential election, when Kerry’s loss was spun as being a result of, “not getting the message out”, despite having overwhelming media support and promotion. In reality his defeat was a rejection of the candidate, his platform, and liberal policies. Claiming “we didn’t get the message out” is a clever way of shifting responsibility for failure from the content of the policies to the capabilities of their prophets. Let mere mortals take the fall, so that dogma can live on. So it is with mixed gender housing.
In that same Sun report, housing director Carlos Gonzalez stated the truth: “The findings of the pilot were that…the few multi-gender suites that were reserved ended up yielding far more roommate issues and complaints than single-gender suites.” To counter Smith’s obfuscation, just as easily the program’s failure was the result of the average student seeing the potential hazards and conflicts of living with the opposite gender, conflicts which according to Gonzalez are all too real.
This issue was also brought up back in 2007 when the pilot program was first passed. The student courageous enough to discuss its implications was Mike Wacker, who wrote in the Sun, “By enabling boyfriends and girlfriends to room together, the University is really asking for trouble.” The line of reasoning is simple and self-evident: romantic couple rooms together, breaks up, and is stuck sharing a room or suite. Alternatively, a set of “just friends” rooms together gets intoxicated (as students are wont to do), resulting in unwanted sexual contact, or worse, assault. This comes at a time when the university is concerned with limiting the opportunities for this to occur. As Wacker eloquently stated, if a cohabitation situation were to go sour, “At best, the lady will not feel safe or comfortable in her own room. At worst, the housing contract will essentially lock her into a situation where sexual crimes can take place behind closed doors.” Wacker also cited the statistic that cohabitation before marriage doubles the rate of divorce. Is this something the university really wants to promote?
Let’s be honest; this policy is not meant for Joe Frat, who thinks he can increase his chances by living with a girl freshman year. It is being pushed solely for the benefit of the men, women, and especially those-not-quite-sure members of the LGBT community. The resolution draft says as much, stating, “The aim of gender inclusive housing is to provide a safe living option for gender non-conforming, gender-queer, and transgender students…” As if it is unsafe (actively harmful, mind you, not just occasionally uncomfortable) for them to live with peers unlike themselves. Does anyone recall systematic dorm room violence against gay students? It would have been headline news.
Essentially, this policy is the evolution of the program house. It is an LGBT program house distributed across every hall and dorm on campus. This particular movement gets to have their cake and eat it too—insular self-segregation and the power to impose their presence and ideas on the rest of the school in the most intimate of settings. And quite disturbing ideas they are. One goal specified in the resolution draft is, “…to begin to break down the traditional binary in the man-woman gender divide…while exploring the cultural constructions of gender identity.” Mixed gender housing is not only to provide an opportunity to a group of students, but incorporates the stated goal of being a tool to change the rest of the student body, whether they want to be involved in the program or not. The destruction and social engineering of something as basic and biologically necessary as gender roles, which traditionally-minded students know have been of utmost importance for properly functioning societies and families, is now official university policy, brought about by your SA representatives.
Although it will not be available for a few years, the program will eventually expand to freshman housing. Due to mandatory and mostly randomized first-year on-campus housing, this is the most troubling part of the experiment. The much-praised experience of living with roommates in a dorm freshman year is that you will meet new and diverse people, perhaps very unlike yourself. This program is designed for a select subset (LGBTs) of those too uncomfortable with this concept to escape it completely—one of the same problems we see with the program houses—by choosing to live with people of similar viewpoints. How exactly does this prepare students for real life, where they just maybe might be forced to interact with people of different stripes than their own?
At the same time, those not comfortable around the behavior promoted by the mixed gender policy will not be afforded the same opportunity to feel secure in their surroundings. Traditionally-minded students in rooms and suites around mixed gender rooms may feel uncomfortable around such a lifestyle, and all students will suffer collateral damage from any problems arising in these rooms (keeping in mind that they have a higher rate of problems). Potentially, these rooms and suites could develop a damaging social stigma. Yet there is no recourse for those affected negatively by this policy. In fact, those who speak up about any negative results of the LGBT social experiment will likely be accused of discrimination or intolerance.
Instead of paying attention to the results of their own pilot program, the SA, with a supportive administration behind them, has passed a new expansion program without resolving any of the concerns brought up when the pilot started, or have become apparent due to its failure. In years past there has been a simple option for those uncomfortable living with others (for any reason): singles. Now, the forces of political correctness insist not only that this option is no longer sufficient, but that in the interests of fairness all students must have the new option designed to “help” only a few. It is policy blind to reality. Yes, the few students who are in genuine need should be accommodated, but this would be much better accomplished on a case-by-case basis instead of by opening a potentially harmful program to any student for any reason.
Noah Kantro is a junior in the College of Engineering. He can be reached at nk366@cornell. edu.