Make housing model embody gender-neutrality

The gender-neutral housing pilot program that Duke launched this fall manages to expand student options without realizing true gender- neutrality. In its present incarnation, Duke’s gender-neutral plan allows males and females to share two and three bedrooms apartments on Central Campus or to live in the same hallways on West Campus. Even for a pilot, this program comes up short—the program allows for only one opposite gender student in a three bedroom apartment on Central and countenances no mixed-gender roommate pairs on West.

The current mandatory living arrangements perpetuate a stigma where the interactions between male and female students in residence halls implicitly carry sexual connotations. Mandatory same gender housing brands mixed-gender living as a dissolute way of life—an option too lawless for all but post-collegiate adults. True gender-neutrality strives to minimize distinctions between gender, and Duke’s policy will miss this mark so long as members of the opposite gender cannot live together as roommates across campus.

The university’s plan does mirror the structure set by many of its peer institutions in recent years. Yale University tried their own gender-neutral experiment in 2010 by affording seniors an opportunity to live in mixed-gender suites but not mixed-gender rooms. Yale was the last of the Ivy League universities to institute gender-neutral housing , and the shift garnered a positive response. Yale’s scheme, like Duke’s, gives Yale room to constrain the activities of its students without completely restricting their living arrangements, and even managed to kept some students from living off-campus.

True enough, a more comprehensive gender-neutral plan may lure some seniors back to the Gothic Wonderland. But the plan’s ultimate goal should be to offer a complete set of housing options for all students. In particular, true gender-neutral housing should accommodate students regardless of sexual orientation. Same-sex roommates confront LGBT students with precisely the tension that motivates a conservative gender-neutral policy in the first place. A systematic gender-neutral policy stems from Duke’s obligation to give all students equal regard.

The residential overhaul offered by the house model gives Duke a chance to get gender-neutral housing right. Gender-neutrality can only undermine stigma when it is available across campus. But a campus wide option need not turn the tables on students who prefer same-gender hallways—mixed-gender rooms and same-gender hallways should both be available on an opt-in basis.

To successfully integrate gender-neutrality into the house model, administrators may have to walk the line of logistical chaos. Last summer’s gender-neutral imbroglios remind us that assigning rooms is anything but simple. To avoid friction on a large-scale, the administration needs to build a gender-neutral room assignment system now.

Perhaps a flexible approach will work best; if the administration avoids classifying some houses as gender-neutral, it can give itself room to assign gender-neutral sections purely on the basis of student demand. In any case, houses should include a diverse range of same-gender and mixed-gender rooms. If the lion’s share of houses have gender-neutral and same-gender options, student house preferences will not compromise student roommate preferences.

Students are adults and they have a right to determine which living situation fits them best. This ambition can only find realization in true gender-neutral housing.