A new dorm room policy allowing male and female students to share the same dorm room is gradually becoming more accepted on our nation’s campuses.
At the University of Chicago, two 19-year-old students, Charlie Barlow and Lauren Danzig will be rooming together this fall under the new policy. The duo apparently is not romantically involved, says Lauren, who explained to the Chicago Sun Times that while she has a boyfriend on campus, she chose to live with Charlie because she gets along better with men. The Seattle native says her parents are okay with her decision.
“The change in policy was debated for the last couple of years after advocates for transgender students pushed the university to allow ‘gender neutral’ housing. They said some transgender students feel uncomfortable rooming with students of the same sex when they actually identify with the opposite sex.”
Although the option of coed dorm rooms has been made available by numerous liberal schools like Wesleyan University, Oberlin College and Oregon State University, it raised some eyebrows when a conservative campus like the U. of Chicago adopted a similar policy, said the Chicago Tribune.
To critics who “say the arrangement encourages promiscuity and caters to a politically correct handbook,” the Trib reported that nineteen-year-old U. of Chicago sophomore Asha Woodall said that “it’s not really fair to discriminate based on gender anymore,” adding that these days “sexuality is more of a spectrum.”
Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.
