Perspectives on gender-neutral housing at Barnard

A lot has been said about gender-neutral housing at Columbia. We’ve heard about the sudden red light given by the deans, students scrambling to change the housing plans they had made with a friend of a different sex, disappointed reactions from student leaders, and a petition. What’s left to say? As tempted as I am to spend 800 words echoing the disappointment of other supporters of the policy, I’ll instead try to get back to the basics of this initiative, particularly to explain why gender-neutral housing is such an important issue for Barnard and then look ahead to how we can move forward. The push for gender-neutral housing started last spring as an initiative of the Barnard Student Government Association’s Diversity Committee. SGA moved quickly on the issue, unanimously passing a resolution in favor of the policy. While this event was not marked by the flurry of media attention that we saw last fall at Columbia, proposed gender-neutral housing at Barnard is actually the more interesting question. The SGA resolution calls for a policy change not only to grant more student choice, but to correct an institutional assumption that all Barnard students identify as female and that all females are best suited to living with a member of the same sex.

I imagine that for many people affiliated with Barnard, the idea that not all students identify as female seems contradictory, and perhaps even inconceivable. However, I also believe that deviation from the gender binary is not a new idea for the majority. It seems natural that one day we would use the analytical perspectives on gender theory that are taught in our women’s studies departments and take action to apply them to our college. However, deconstructing the importance of gender in an institution defined by gender is dangerous territory. It calls for debate far beyond the scope of this article.

On a practical level, gender-neutral housing would not compromise Barnard’s integrity as a women’s college, because we already have a housing exchange that allows for male-identified CC and SEAS students to live in mixed-gender Barnard suites. As significant as the move from suitemate to roommate could be for students’ personal comfort, it does not threaten to change the college’s identity.

As complex and significant as gender-neutral housing is for Barnard alone, it is nonetheless diminished by the fact that we can’t do much on our side of the street until changes are implemented at Columbia. There is something to be said for a gender-neutral policy at a women’s college that serves to acknowledge evolving ideas about identity. Unfortunately, this change still wouldn’t serve the needs of many students who feel they are best suited to live with men. Even if a policy change at Barnard could happen without Columbia taking the first step (which Barnard administrators have indicated is relatively unlikely), CC and SEAS students would still be subject to Columbia’s policy even if they lived in Barnard housing.

Before we can approach these complexities, change needs to come to Columbia. What can we take from these recent events to help us move forward? One response from administrators that stuck with me was that the need for gender-neutral housing is not pressing due to the fact that Columbia already has mixed-gender floors. I can understand how an administrator might believe this. However, for students who aren’t comfortable living with a roommate of their same legal sex, having floormates whom they would feel comfortable changing in front of doesn’t do much good. Students living in the dorms know that there is a big difference in requisite intimacy between a floormate and a roommate. Some administrators, for whom college roommates are a distant memory, don’t share this perspective.

It’s undeniable that there are plenty of logistical difficulties to which administrators may not be motivated to find solutions, and which serve as convenient scapegoats for rejection of the proposal. In the next year, the most important element of this policy initiative will be demonstrations of student support to put pressure on administrators and to keep these logistical details from preventing the passage of this progressive policy.

Big changes in housing policies at Columbia and Barnard have always been student-driven. In contrast to the radical protests and scandal that framed the transition from single- to mixed-gender dorms, the road to gender-neutral housing has been very cooperative so far. We’ve seen strong leadership from the Columbia College Student Council, the Engineering Student Council, SGA, and several student groups. This very sudden and unexpected decision from the deans is undeniably disappointing. However, given the amount and quality of work that has gone into this initiative, I know that this setback will only strengthen the efforts to pass this important expansion of our freedom of choice.

The author is a Barnard College junior. She is a resident assistant and a member of the SGA Diversity Committee.