OPINION: The Debate over Randomized Housing

Con: Don't Stifle Expression To many, first-year assigned housing seems like a logical solution for the University to address the issue of racial tension on campus. If students must live together, then they will eventually learn to get along. However, the Commission's recommendation has one vital flaw: assigned housing eliminates choice. To eliminate where one chooses to live, even if it is the "delayed choice" as the Commission recommends, undermines our basic civil rights. Throughout the year, the campus has been battling first amendment rights and free speech. Is this not an extension of the same discussion, a freedom to express who we are? The Commission concluded that living in one's own small comfortable environment would not prepare students for the later years. But, students of color should not feel guilty to quench their desire to live and learn about their ethnicity. When students of color arrive on campus, many are starving for knowledge of themselves in order to gain greater self-assurance and self-awareness. If a student can not live the way he or she wants, then he or she is subjected to the very same homogenous environment the Commission has wanted to avoid. And college is the opportunity to discover who we are, especially as first-year students. Programs like Dubois College House and other living learning programs allow students to address these needs their first year. Are we to assume that the Commission will ignore their desire to grow in an academic environment? Isn't assigned housing another means to infringe upon the rights of minorities as long as the greater good is achieved for the community? Yet how can this strengthen the community? Many student say that the only way they will get a chance to meet a black person is through residences. Assigned housing may get minority students on a predominantly white floor, but what purpose will this serve if they do not interact? Examples of this abound. One black female lived in the quad her first-year on a floor with 11 white males and 3 females -- she regretted her decision and her floor never saw her around, but at least she was allowed to choose and allowed to regret. In the same way, students must also choose to want to interact. Without this choice, resentment will build-up and explode. Some students of color have already experienced living in the "real world" dominated by the white majority by coming from predominantly white high schools. Knowing that they will have to live in this majority after college, should they not be allowed to experience living with students from their own ethnicity during college? Others have commented, "But it is only for the first-year, and then students can branch out afterwards." In the same respect, the first-year is the most important year to feel comfortable. This is the year where students need to make choices for themselves, beginning with residences. We accepted them to this university, and they should be mature enough to decide for themselves where to live. Although Commission Chairperson Gloria Chisum has repeatedly stated that assigned housing is not an attack on DuBois College House or any other living learning program, by not allowing first-year students to take advantage of these programs, the Commission is, in effect, weakening them. Living learning programs and college houses allow first-year students to interact with upperclassmen who can advise them about classes and about the struggles in being a student of color. This connection encourages students of color to overcome obstacles and continue their education at the University. For example, after DuBois College House was created, the matriculation and retention rate of black students rose greatly. Why should black students come to an environment that says we want you here as long as you don't express who you are, as long as you join the mainstream? Housing is one's sense of coming home. And after facing subtle discrimination on a daily basis, students want to enjoy coming home. But is it not true that it will be the minority student who must be forced to "cope and live together", and not the white students? We could not force students to take a Racism 101 class in the past years, which was just class. In this case, we are forcing integration so white students can meet Black, Latino, Asian, or Native American students. But then again, housing is easier to implement than a multicultural class because one is only fighting with students, not faculty. And finally, let's examine the ridiculousness of socially engineering a diverse community. First, we do not have the numbers to create this utopian community when each year, the University admits an average of 20 Chicano students, 110 black students, and so on. Second, birds of a feather flock together but when it's a racial flock, then they must be segregating themselves because the color of the flocks' skin is so striking. Are we also going to social engineer the Greek system as well? Because they too are comprised of students who are alike, who share things in common. Yet they are not viewed as separatist but are valued by the University. Where will one draw the line? Lastly, the Commission says these are "general recommendations" and the kinks still need to be worked out. But one has to wonder whether they can proceed with socially engineering a diverse community through housing when it is illegal to force students to identify their ethnicity on their applications. So, then the questions reverts back to whether we are talking about randomized housing or assigned. Your guess is as good as mine. If the University wants to strengthen the entire community, then it should not persecute cultures but celebrate the differences and encourage interaction in other forms. Students have offered other solutions, and now the Commission needs to be more open-minded itself and listen to what is being said. Speak up or it will be too late! Jun Bang is a senior International Relations major. She is currently chairperson of the United Minorities Council.