Students at the University of Arizona are petitioning for more freedom when it comes to choosing whom they live with.
About 30 Wildcats from the LGBTQ community attended a forum on Oct. 20, asking university administration to consider implementing a new pilot program that would establish a gender-neutral housing option. If the proposed program goes into effect, UA students of the opposite sex could room together next fall.
Expected to be offered in a wing or floor in a residence hall, the mixed-gender housing would primarily be designated for students in the LGBTQ community. This unique request comes as a response from students who have often felt victimized, misunderstood and even unsafe because of others’ reactions to their sexual orientation.
A change in living situation won’t end the prejudice these students face once outside their dorm rooms, however, and many feel this living arrangement will only lead to new avenues of discrimination.
Director of Residential Life for the university Jim Van Arsdel is one of these people.
For Van Ardsel, the dilemma not only lies in a question of whether the university should be obliged to accommodate its LGBTQ students, but where the university should draw the line in making such arrangements.
“Part of the difficulty is that if we become too accommodating, we get to the point where we are expected to be the agents of hatred,” said Van Ardsel, who spoke to the Arizona Daily Wildcat. Van Ardsel carefully pointed out that issues like “race, religion, sexual identity, etc. can also be fought for on the roommate preference issue.”
While the program aims to accommodate LGBTQ students presently, it opens the door for other students to ask to be provided with the same consideration. If there’s one question that must be asked in examining these types of programs, it’s “What’s next?”
The motives behind LGBTQ students requesting special living accommodations would be no different than Hispanic students or Jewish students requesting to live together. Though we may never see a day where dorms separate students by race, religion or political party, pilot programs like that being considered at UA make these types of living situations a definite possibility.
Hannah Lozon, coordinator of social justice education for Residential Life at UA, would suggest otherwise.
Speaking of the intent behind implementing the pilot program, Lozan told the Daily Arizona Wildcat that, "This isn't about segregation. It is only about making people feel more inclusive and safe.”
But the reality is that only one group of people benefit from this arrangement, and it is for that group of people that the program is “inclusive.”
It is understandable that the LGBTQ students would feel more comfortable living in an environment where they are surrounded by peers, but by requesting to live only with those of a specific sexual orientation, they are also asking to live separately from those who who do not fall into that category.
Is it fair that LGBTQ students are exposed to prejudice on a daily basis? No. However the same answer could be given in response to asking if such pilot programs will eliminate or even lessen the degree of discrimination on college campuses.
Residence halls are used as a way to bring students together while introducing them to those with lifestyles different than their own. By enacting programs that emphasize students’ differences instead of their similarities, dorms will become a place to shelter students from diversity rather than expose them to it.
Reach Jessica at jrstone3@asu.edu
