A gender-neutral housing no-brainer

Like most outdated policies, UNC’s restriction of all on-campus housing to same-gender roommates made sense, once.

After all, back in 1805 the good people of North Carolina saw it wise to bar unmarried couples from living together.

Fortunately, times have changed, and that cohabitation law was finally struck down in 2006.

It’s time for UNC’s housing policy to catch up.

I’ll admit, I was accustomed to gender-segregated housing even before UNC. Attending boarding school in the U.K., I lived in an all-boys boarding house from sixth to 11th grade. For middle-schoolers at a Christian boarding school, I could understand the policy.

But for college students at a public university, it’s a different matter entirely.

On-campus housing at UNC is compulsory for all freshmen. But this isn’t to enforce a moral code: the aim is to allow students to feel connected to this campus, while excelling individually.

So short of legal restraints on conduct, it should be entirely your business how you live your life inside your room.

And that’s generally what UNC’s Housing and Residential Education department tries to do at the moment.

They provide multiple housing options to help students feel comfortable. There are all-male and all-female dorms, coed dorms with single-gender floors, and coed floors with single-gender rooms.

So the logical step is accommodating students of different genders who prefer to live together.

I see two reasons why now is the time for administrators to act.

First, it’s already happening at universities across the country. There are gender non-specific housing options at six of UNC’s 15 peer institutions and at almost 100 respected institutions nationally.

So this isn’t revolutionary, there’s a growing consensus in support across higher education. And that means administrators can draw on the experiences of other campuses as they define the specifics of this option at UNC.

Second, there’s clear support for the change on campus.

Thanks to an impressive advocacy campaign led by sophomore Kevin Claybren, more than 1,000 students have already signed petitions supporting the creation of an opt-in gender non-specific housing option. More than 20 student organizations have offered public support, including leading groups such as the Campus Y, student government, CHispA and the Residential Housing Association.

Support doesn’t just come from students. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Winston Crisp shared his support for the proposal at Carolina United this summer. The housing department says they’re just waiting for the green light to look into it further; the chairmen of UNC’s Parent’s Council think parents would be keen to see a concrete proposal.

The little opposition that I’ve seen seems to be based on a misguided fear that this housing option would become the norm for all students (which it would not), the belief that the cohabitation ban is still law, or a more tenuous objection to coed dorms in general.

A gender non-specific housing option would benefit some students without harming others, and its working out where it’s being tried. So what are we waiting for?