The Final Frontier: Heterosexual College Roommates
Jeff Robinson
April 4, 2008
"Gender-inclusiveness" as a term has finally gotten around to including heterosexuals on college campuses in Oregon, but in a way that is anything but positive.
OregonLive.com reported last week that colleges and universities across that Northwestern state are beginning to allow virtually anyone to room together on campus.
This might indeed be accurately termed "the final frontier" in college dorm arrangements that started with coed dorm buildings, followed by coed dorm floors, followed by coed bathrooms, and finally coed dorm rooms. In addition, institutions of higher learning in Oregon have already followed a nationwide trend by developing special campus housing arrangements for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
Many schools in Oregon and in other states already allow for opposite-gender roommates who, as the paper describes it, "do not feel comfortable in a traditional roommate arrangement." The Oregonian accurately describes the move as "breaking the last gender barrier."
A sizable group of students lobbied in favor of the inclusion of heterosexual roomies for the sake of equality-felt it was unfair to allow gay and lesbian couples to live together while shutting out heterosexual couples. Some among them suggest that many young men and women will desire to room together while keeping a strictly platonic relationship.
"It's really just about allowing students to choose who they are most comfortable living with," student Jenne Schmidt said.
"It's just about everyone being equal in who you get to choose to live with," said Michael Reed, associate dean of residence at Reed College.
One factor for which the schools are bracing is the common reality that heterosexual students date for a time and then break up; it is a virtual certainty that many students who are in a dating relationship will room together and then break off the romantic relationship. Bob Hawkinson, dean of campus life at Williamette University sounds a bit more skittish than most when considering this particular implication.
"People of this age simply do break up a lot," he said. "This is just asking for more trouble than we want to take on."
Trouble indeed.
Besides being guilty of backward reasoning (reasoning from gay, lesbian, bisexual, "transgender" rights to heterosexual rights), this move in Oregon is troubling for the faulty presupposition that undergirds it: men and women are really not all that different. School officials seem to be assuming that a young man and young women sharing the same living space is really no different than two guys or two girls rooming together.
There are certainly profound biblical reasons to be made in favor of keeping unmarried men and women in separate living quarters, but underlying them is one fundamental, self-evident reality: men and women are different. This truth alone is reason enough to keep the more traditional college living arrangements in place.
But the dilemma runs deeper than mere biological differences: when men and women live together, even if their aim is to remain platonic, these differences are in grave danger of manifesting themselves in sinful ways. This is particularly true given the twin realities of a hyper-sexualized culture and the presence of sexual desires that seem particularly robust in the late teen/early adult years.
Bob Hawkinson is indeed correct: these schools are asking for trouble.