A win on gender-neutral housing

Columbia has long been the vanguard of political progressivism. This is the University of Mark Rudd and SDS, of the first student group focused on gay rights—the Student Homophile League—and of divestment from South Africa. We should remain the vanguard—not of what sounds nice, but of what’s right.

And that’s why we were thrilled to hear that, after more than two years of debate, gender-neutral housing (also known as “open housing”) is finally coming to Columbia.

Gender-neutral housing will make our campus more welcoming and more comfortable for students of all stripes—gay and straight alike.

This spring, when room selection rolls around, Columbians will have the option of living in mixed-gender doubles in six dormitories: Wien, East Campus, Ruggles, Nussbaum, Claremont, and Woodbridge. This pilot program, a modified version of the original student council proposal (which called for gender-blind doubles in all upperclass residence halls), will go into effect beginning next fall. After an evaluation in spring 2012, administrators will consider opening it up to the rest of the non-freshman dorms.

We recognize that the process of introducing gender-neutral housing was not a simple one. There were logistics to resolve, parents and alumni to worry about, and angry political invective to endure.

And of course, at a large University, everything is going to take some time. Yet this very welcome change should have come more quickly. It is, in many ways, not a major change. Students already live in mixed-gender suites, where they share spaces as intimate as bathrooms.

More importantly, students at Columbia are adults. There is no reason we should be barred from rooming with people of the opposite sex. Such a restriction is patronizing and unnecessary.

It was a shame, then, that the administration failed to get its act together last winter, denying students this option for another year. Gender-neutral housing has been and remains one of the top priorities for students. It is troubling to see the administration move so slowly in response to very reasonable student demands.

But while we wish the change could have come sooner, we are extremely hopeful for the future. This spring, Columbia will become the third Ivy League school to offer gender-neutral housing. Two years is a long time, but we’re still far ahead of most universities on this issue.

We look forward to the pilot program and we trust that the University will expand gender-neutral housing to all non-freshman dorms in future years.

We’re still ahead of the curve—but we’ve got to keep moving to stay ahead.