Elis brave cold for gender neutrality
As the icy wind whipped across campus on Tuesday evening, it promised to be a long, cold night for the students sleeping “in” on the frozen ground.
Despite the below-freezing temperatures — 18 degrees Fahrenheit at midnight, wind chill notwithstanding — over a dozen students gathered outside to sleep in orange and gray tents on Cross Campus in support of gender-neutral housing at Yale. The sleep-in — officially sponsored by Students for Housing Equality at Yale — comes after Yale officials announced Monday that Yale College juniors and seniors would not have gender-neutral housing...
i agree on the surface it seems like an easy decision, but i think the problem of implementation. juniors are often forced during the draw to recombine suites, break up suites, be annexed. this could create potentially huge problems between same-sex suites and mixed-suites. Or maybe someone feels comfortable with one person of the opposite sex, but not someone they would potentially have to add to the room. I don't think Yale is being evil in continuing the study. They are, after all, not definitely saying no in any way.
...and if you get sick because of this are you all of a sudden going to decide to hold Yale accountable?
@ Yale 11 We are definitely not protesting the idea that there are logistical concerns. There are clearly issues with implementation. Our concern is why, when this policy proposal was put on the University's desk over a year ago, there wasn't adequate investigation of those concerns. The University's "procrastination" reflects the low priority LGBT students have on the administration's to do list.
@3 - Um, Clearly.
It's not entirely clear to me what more there is to "study" at this point. The current policy of disallowing some rooming combinations on the basis of sex is unfair, and sexist.
If Yale really wants to "study" this issue, then it should create something to study: it should have gender-neural housing as a trial run in three or four colleges, and then we all will see if any scary bad nightmare scenarios actually come to pass.
having the option to room with someone of the opposite gender seems like a no-brainer to me. most people will still room with same-gender people, so nothing huge will change. and the few who want to (i.e. because their best friends are of the opposite gender) would be able to. i don't foresee this causing any problems. if anything, it will improve the viability and vibrancy of the residential colleges because then less students would have incentives to move off-campus.