Yale's decision to explore providing students with gender-neutral housing options leaves Princeton as the only Ivy League school yet to consider such a policy. The gender segregation of housing at Princeton is a historic legacy incongruous with the rest of ...(back to the article)
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Thanks for the article, it's just so silly that P doesn't allow girls and boys to share an apartment. Uuuu! I think it's worth remembering that not *all* gender-neutral housing arrangements will be for couples: I wanted to room with friends (both female and male) in Spelman next year, but, of course, didn't even give it a serious thought. I also gave up writing to housing about this issue. For non couples, there's no reason to believe there'd be any of the so called "bureaucratic concerns", and besides I think what is more important than these concerns is that this old-fashioned rule is incompatible with the non-discriminatory positions held by the U... They have smart people in the administration, they'll figure out a way (or look elsewhere to see how to do it) of handling couples breaking up in the middle of the year... this shouldn't be a reason to question whether gender-neutral housing has to be done or not, but rather an issue to be solved after we all agree that we have to have gender-neutral housing...
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Any neutral reader can see that neither of these people have "judged gender-neutral housing more harm than good". In fact, it's clear that they hope it would cause more good than harm. I mean, they clearly support the idea in principle. They're simply remarking about a single issue on the other side of the argument--one that is worthy of consideration, even if you ultimately decide, as I have, that the pros of gender-neutral housing outweigh the cons. All institutions constantly have to consider things that are essentially hard to compare: "How much two people want to live together", for instance, versus a legitimate (yes, legitimate) bureaucratic concern. Or making people feel free to use library and dining hall services at their leisure versus setting limits on usage in consideration of staffing, maintenance and the financial planning. Or providing people the opportunity to take whatever courses they'd like versus class limits so that professors can foster effective learning environments. It's fearfully naive to say that these issues clearly break one or the other, depending on which side happens to align most with our self-interest. I think it's flatly wrong to say that to consider bureaucracy is to treat people like children by belittling their ability to make rational choices for themselves. In fact, I'd hope that in a progressive institution like ours, we'd have an administrative culture that doesn't see the patrons of university services as more important than the staff who serve them. In this light, I think the prudent rebuttal to the "pragmatists" concerns is an easy. Just point to evidence from other universities that this change hasn't overwhelmed their housing departments. I think that's a response that values everybody equally and gets to the core of the particular argument. It's certainly better than "This is how I want to be treated and I don't give a s--t about how it potentially affects (or 'annoys') anyone else". Doesn't that sentiment simply invert what underlies the current problem that the university's current housing policy doesn't seem to give a s--t about people who want to cohabit? I, like P'08, disagree with the "pragmatists". But I applaud them as well. Making an intellectualy honest attempt to consider both sides of an argument is what we're taught to do here.
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it's not purely empirical. you would have to somehow measure how much two people want to live together and compare that to the annoyance housing might experience if they change their minds. you are implicitly judging the nature of someone else's relationship if you judge gender-neutral housing more harm than good
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I can't speak for "@ Pragmatist", but my reading of the sentence is that, in his/her estimation, the administrative/RCA-related/etc. probably outweigh the benefits to be gained by allowing gender-neutral housing. This is an empirical question, and I think he was just giving his best guess at what would happen. I don't think @ Pragmatist wants to judge anyone's relationships either.
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My questions that you found offensive were primarily a response to this: "The cons outweigh the pros, I believe," which was written by a fellow "pragmatist," and you'll notice that my post was directed at both of you. I took that to mean that "@pragmatist" presumed to know something about the benefits I, as an individual, would experience if allowed to live with someone of the opposite sex and that he/she thought he/she had sufficient evidence that the risks outweighed those benefits.
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Your question are not difficult at all. They are, however, not relevant to anything I've written in this thread, since neither I nor anyone else has claimed to know anything about the quality of anyone's relationship + no such knowledge is required for my argument. Your questions are disrespectful in that you, in an accusatory tone, impute to me the intention to judge how good other people's relationships are - a completely unjustified accusation unsupported by anything in what I have written. As for the university treating students as responsible adults: I'm all for it and, in fact, think that - in many respects - the university is overly protective as it is. I'm just pointing out an additional concern that I think should be taken into account, when making a decision to move to gender-neutral housing. It may be that the concern would prove unfounded and little administrative difficulty would ensue - this situation, btw, would make me happy because it would mean that gender-neutral housing can be easily implemented. I regard that as a good thing. (I'm not entirely sure you've noticed that I am actually in favor of gender-neutral housing, since you - for some reason - insist on arguing against me. I'm not even arguing against your view, just adding an additional concern to be aware of.) [This will probably be the last thing I'll say on this topic.]
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I didn't realize that by posing difficult questions I was somehow being disrespectful. You have still yet to address the crux of my argument, which is that we are all adults and should have the right to make these decisions for ourselves, weighing the risks and benefits for ourselves. And as adults, we will take responsibility for our decisions and work it out or suck it up and deal with it if we end up making a mistake. Housing can even put a disclaimer on roomdraw forms that students are not guaranteed a room change in the event of a dispute or break-up, thereby cautioning students about this risk. All I am asking is that the University treat me like the adult I am, affording me all of the rights *and responsibilities* that go along with that status. That is the issue you have yet to address, "pragmatist."
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"Who are you to judge the benefits and risks I would experience from living with my best friend and lover? Who nominated you as the expert on other people's relationships?" Nobody is making any such claims, and we should keep the tone of the debate respectful. The point is that the policy may create an administrative mess and a lot of drama, if couples break up and can't stand the thought of living together anymore. (Btw, I think this is a more difficult - at least emotionally - problem than a possible mismatch between two people with different sleeping schedules, drinking habits or political views.) In a world of abundant, cheap and desirable housing alternatives, this wouldn't be much of a problem - one (or both of them) would suck it up, and find an alternative arrangement. However, off-campus housing at Princeton is not cheap, and on-campus rooms are scarce and of varying quality. Such situations would thus likely create a demand for the university to deal with such issues, leading to unnecessary bureaucratic trouble. Will this happen? I don't know. It may well be that a lot of couples will decide not to take their chances and only the most committed couples will move in together, in which case very little trouble would ensue and we can happily move to gender-neutral housing. The potential for these kinds of issues, however, strikes me to be a legitimate concern to take into account. As I said before, I am sympathetic to the idea of letting people room with people of the opposite sex, and have made no claim to know anything about the quality of anyone's relationship.
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To "pragmatists": We currently allow students to live with each other even when they have a high probability of having problems: a crew athlete and a late sleeper, a heavy drinker and a non-drinker, liberals and conservatives. In fact, freshmen have the worst time with roommates because they haven't had any meaningful input regarding their room assignment. Since the writers of the editorial are only proposing the change for sophmore-senior years, you wouldn't have to worry about males and females living together without knowing each other first. Furthermore, the bottom line, I repeat, is that we are thoughtful, independent adults, and we have a right to take the risk if we *personally* judge the benefite to outweigh the risks. Who are you to judge the benefits and risks I would experience from living with my best friend and lover? Who nominated you as the expert on other people's relationships? If we make a mistake we will accept the consequences, just like any other risky roommate couple would need to do. If the housing dept. can't accomodate our change, we will deal with it by seeking out off-campus housing or whatever. We would accept responsibility for our decision. That's what being treated like an adult entails.
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Agreed. Ideally, cohabitation should be allowed, but there would be a whole crock of issues introduced if it were. I can't help but imagine that roommate disputes would spike dramatically, something that RCAs and such would have to deal with, and that the housing department would have to work harder than it currently does to resolve such issues. The cons outweigh the pros, I believe.
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Get it done.
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This year, Housing did offer 'gender-neutral' housing as an option for grad students living in the Graduate College (GC). This came about due to the requests of the GSG and GC House Committee on the Housing Policy Committee, and was supported by the Housing office. Of course grad students living in apartments have always had the option to live with any student, spouse, or domestic partner.
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On the whole, I am sympathetic to the ideas expressed in this editorial. I have, however, some concern on pragmatic grounds. What if a large number of couples decide to live together, and then - at some point during the academic year - break up? Would the housing department be flooded with reassignment requests from people who can no longer stand seeing each other every day? (Yes, I know this can happen to gay couples today. There are, however, relatively few of them, and the potential for the problem is diminished. This could change if the policy was expanded to heterosexual couples.) I guess whether the policy is wise turns on the empirical questions of how many potentially unstable couples would make the decision to live together. Do we have any evidence of what happened at colleges that have already adopted gender-neutral housing?
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Excellent editorial... thank you. I have lived with my boyfriend of several years for many weeks out of each summer and we wanted to live together this year. Of course this simply wasn't possible with the University's arcane restrictions. We tried looking for off-campus housing but it was just too much of an inconvenience and too expensive. The bottom line is that we are thoughtful, independent adults and we should have the right to make the decision to live with one another just as we would in any apartment outside of Princeton's campus.
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Would the University's failure to instate gender-neutral housing in any way indicate that it is not "truly welcoming" of all sexual preferences? It sounds to me like someone thought it would be a good idea to make vague references to discrimination against a minority group that may not be directly affected by this issue - at least not because of their status as members of that group.
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