Wilkes housing discriminates based on gender

When I was a kid, I shared a room with all of my three brothers at one point or another. When I was about nine or ten, it stopped. Why? Because we finally had a house with enough room to separate us. But, we still lived in the same house and occasionally shared sleeping quarters for one reason or another.

However, a year or so ago when I talked to Brenda Stanley, former director of residence life, I was denied the ability to share a University Towers apartment with my younger brother, Mitch. Not because of silly sibling rivalry, but because he is a boy and I am a girl.

While I would like to say “OH MY (expletive) GOD – EW!!” and ask them why they need an anti-incest policy, there is a more pressing matter at hand. Also, shame on you, residence life.

Ladies and gentleman, this is not 1952. There is no reason a boy and a girl cannot live together. Race, color, creed, religion, sex, physical disability, mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status, national or ethnic origin and any other protected status should not be considered when people choose to live together on a college campus.

Residence life doesn’t want boys and girls living together in the same apartment or dorm because of romantic issues. That is what Stanley told me.  To be clear, the student handbook’s section entitles “Residence Halls” says nothing about that. If they’re trying to stop people from having sex on campus, that ship has sailed.

It is important to note, however, that if two homosexuals want to live together, it just kind of happens. Frankly, it would just be too much work to go around and constantly make sure that two people living together of the same gender were not romantically involved.

Sure, the occasional couple will move in together and things will go awry. Yes. However, this has already happened with campus homosexuals.

Can we all just take a step back and look at what this really is? The real issue here is that this is discrimination against straight people at the same time as gay people. As far as I can remember, this is the only situation where this has ever actually happened simultaneously.
Straight people can cohabitate whenever and practically wherever they want with whomever they want. The exception is that on college campuses, two consenting adults cannot live together if they are of opposing genders.

Whereas gays can’t get married, join the military (openly), adopt children in certain states, etc. AND they can’t live with people of the opposite gender. This actually forces them to live with the gender to which they are attracted, which is exactly what residence life is trying to avoid.

Separate is not equal. Hasn’t America danced that waltz before? Sure, maybe if people are just placed with other students residence life shouldn’t just give them a dorm with someone of the opposite gender, but if they choose that path, it doesn’t make any good sense for it to be a problem.

I’m pretty sure the biggest problems most people have living together are food-, chore- and why-are-you-having-sex-in-our-shared-space-when-I-specifically-asked-you-not-to-related. This has held true since the beginning of mankind when cavemen dormed together.

The point is, the idea that allowing people to choose whom they live with regardless of gender would not cause any bigger issues than what there already are on campus. People are still going to be robbed just as much, they’re still going to loot food out of the cafeteria just as much and they are still going to fight with their roommate just as much, no matter their bits and pieces.