COLUMN: At What Cost Harmony?

From Stephen Glass's "Enemy of the People," Fall '93 From Stephen Glass's "Enemy of the People," Fall '93Battle lines are being drawn in what promises to be the next war on this campus. Those who keep their fingers on the pulse of Penn politics are anxiously awaiting. In this upcoming campus era, however, questions that will impact your daily ritual will be debated and decided. Foremost among those concerns is randomized housing. Currently, there is a strong movement that claims randomized housing is the key to building a community. Freshmen who are assigned housing in a purely random process would meet people, they currently would never encounter. And when people live together, they will form bonds that will span racial and cultural lines. For the past few months, this debate has been on the backburner as arguments over Part II of the Racial Harassment Policy abound. I have agreed with those who insist that randomized housing will solve many of our dilemmas. In fact, they are correct in assuming that it will solve many if not most of the racial problems on this campus. However, while it might solve the University's divisions, it may also attack the very liberty that undergraduates deserve and need. In the past, I have criticized student organizations that opposed lifting the speech code because they were volunteering to hand over their own freedom. These groups were saying, "I am not mature enough to think about what others say and to evaluate the merit. So I am asking the University administration to assume that responsibility for me." Essentially, these students were asking for College Hall administrators to parent them. In many ways, those who demand randomized housing are making a similar request. Students are telling the administration that currently they are making poor choices about where and with whom they should live. To that end, they are asking the University to make this decision for them. For instance, if you were a freshman, you would not be allowed to choose to live in the W.E.B. DuBois house or the Quad. You would be told where to live by a computer in Residential Living's office. And while we may gain quite a bit of racial harmony, we would be sacrificing freedom of choice. Assume for a moment that the University believed the most important racial problem on this campus was not housing, but segregation in the Class of 1920 Commons. To eliminate this, Dining Services assigned you a random seat at a random table when you entered the cafeteria. This would be viewed by all as a throwback to decades past when the University assumed an in loco parentis role and would be a violation of undergraduate's freedom to associate with whomever they choose. Or assume for a moment that the University decided that the true problem was that extracurricular activities, which like living arrangements are self-selecting, were the cause of racial tension on campus. The University could then argue that students who are interested in being part of an a cappella group, for instance, would be randomly assigned to Off the Beat or Pennsylvania 6-5000 regardless of interest or ability. The freedom to choose with whom you want to associate is vital to the liberty of undergraduates. The University must work to ensure that students are not excluded from eating or singing in a specific group on the basis of race or any other criteria. However, the University should not be charged with assigning lunch tables or forming performing arts groups. The University bears a responsibility to prevent exclusion, but bears no responsibility to force inclusion. For instance, there should be nothing to prevent anyone from entering a living arrangement based on their race. A white person should and does have the same opportunity that a black person has to live in W.E.B. DuBois house. No one will ever hand undergraduates the liberty they deserve, they must take it themselves. Likewise, once the students have it, they should not let it go. Unfortunately, when you have freedom, you do not realize what it is like not to have it. Stephen Glass is senior Anthropology major from Highland Park, Illinois and the Executive Editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian. Enemy of the People appears alternate Wednesdays.