University lags behind Ivy peers on co-ed housing

Though the Graduate School is launching a pilot program in the 2008-09 school year that introduces gender-neutral housing for graduate students, a similar option does not exist for undergraduates.

Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson said in an e-mail that the University is not yet prepared to make a decision about gender-neutral housing, though the administration expects to explore the issue within the next year or two and has already begun taking steps to increase the availability of gender-neutral bathrooms.

Dickerson said, however, that gender-neutral housing has not yet been formally addressed because it has not been registered as a main concern for undergraduates.

“To my knowledge,” Dickerson said, “there have been very few student inquiries about this issue. Our rollout of the four year college program required numerous complex changes in our housing policies and in the housing selection process, and in that context the question of adding gender neutral housing was a lesser priority.”

USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 said that, to his knowledge, the issue has not been brought before the USG. Some students, however, believe that the University’s current policy is in need of reform.

“I think it’s pretty ridiculous in this regard that we’re so far behind,” Pride Alliance co-president and LGBT peer educator Fiona Miller ’09 said.

LGBT Center Director Debra Bazarsky noted that gender-neutral housing would allow gay and lesbian students who feel more comfortable with members of the opposite gender to live together as well as help “students who don’t identify as male or female or [are] in the process of transforming to have a more comfortable and secure living environment.”

Sexuality and the role of the University

The current housing situation has already led to an uncomfortable situation for LGBT students, Miller said, adding that the lack of gender-neutral housing constitutes a double standard in the housing policy.

Pride Alliance co-vice president and LGBT peer educator Atrish Bagchi ’10 said that the objections most people have to gender-neutral housing that revolve around introducing romantic or sexual complications represent “outdated … and heteronormative reasoning.

Anscombe Society president Jonathan Hwang ’09 said that he opposes the introduction of gender-neutral housing, adding that the University should not actively endorse such a policy.

Raising the possibility that couples would “enter into this housing program with the intent of leading a sexually active life,” Hwang said that such a policy would be allowing “sexually permissive [lifestyles] with institutional sanction.”

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“The University could therefore be contributing to an increased risk of sexual assault [and] perhaps increased STI prevalence,” he said. “Of course, it is not that such sexual activity will necessarily result in that, but the increased risk would be run, and the University would be facilitating that with this policy.”

Hwang added that if a couple moved in together and subsequently broke up, the resulting situation would be problematic for all parties involved.

Miller said, however, that keeping the current housing policy is “allowing a gender binary that’s so historically restrictive.” She explained that since “within the current housing parameters, LGBT students can maintain sex relations within a living situation … if [the University] denies gender-neutral housing, it’s basically denying the existence of romantic and sexual relationships that occur between students in the LGBT community.”

“I think the argument [for gender-separate housing] falls apart at this point,” Miller said.

Yet Hwang said that the low demand for gender-neutral housing might not warrant the amount of resources the University would have to commit, especially when the potential consequences are so high.

“The University would be committing a significant amount of resources for the convenience of a potentially small number of students when the benefits are not abundantly clear,” he said. “The potential negative outcomes are of tremendous importance.”

Initiating reform

Though the University is not ready to formally offer gender-neutral housing, initial steps are being taken toward implementing a gender-neutral policy in University facilities, beginning with gender-neutral bathrooms. “The administration has made a commitment to add gender-neutral bathrooms in public buildings where feasible,” Dickerson said.

She added that the Housing Department “is currently collecting peer data that will be beneficial to our deliberations,” but that “any policy decision will be made by the deans, in consultation with Housing and the Council of Masters.”

Bazarsky said, though, that Princeton needs to assess its policy based on its own situation, because “looking at how other campuses have gone about their decisions and how they’ve chosen to implement their gender-free housing could impact our decision-making.”

She added that a work group composed of students, staff and faculty has been examining “the ways that we can make Princeton more safe and comfortable for transgender students.” The group was formally established in January 2007.

Transgender and transvariant students experience the most discrimination and safety concerns in bathrooms, housing and locker facilities, Bazarsky said.

The work group has recommended that the University create single-occupancy bathrooms in all the residential colleges and designate rooms in each of the colleges where students can have private, lockable bathrooms.

“I think gender-neutral bathrooms are another really important aspect of having an inclusive and welcoming campus,” Miller said. “[With] any campaign for gender-neutral housing, I would hope that gender-neutral bathrooms would go along with that.”

Bazarsky called this recommendation “a short-term solution to a bigger issue, which is gender-free housing.” She said that her “personal recommendation” is to establish gender-neutral housing in “each of the pairs of residential colleges” that students can “opt into.”

Miller said she believes the movement toward gender-neutral housing is growing and hopes that an “effort will ultimately be a partnership among many constituencies of students at Princeton, and it wouldn’t be just coming from one group.”

“I think Princeton recognizes that it’s time to examine [the issue],” Bazarsky said. “It’s not that it’s not on anyone’s radar.”