Rutgers University to Begin Offering Co-Ed Rooms
NEW BRUNSWICK—Starting this fall, Rutgers University will allow male and female students to live in the same dormitory room for the first time in a pilot program designed to make the New Brunswick campus more welcoming to gay students.
More than 100 undergraduates in Demarest Hall, New Gibbons and Rockoff Hall will have the option of selecting a roommate of the opposite sex, campus officials said. The pilot program will allow gay, lesbian and transgender students to choose either male or female roommates. Heterosexual students will also be permitted to live in co-ed rooms with their boyfriends, girlfriends or platonic friends of the opposite sex.
The new option — called gender-neutral housing — was created at the request of gay, lesbian and transgender students who objected to Rutgers rules that require undergraduates to choose roommates of the same sex.
Rutgers–Newark will offer a similar program this fall, though campus officials said they will limit the mixed-sex housing to a maximum of three rooms in either University Square or Woodward Hall.
Gay campus groups had been asking for gender-neutral housing options for years without success. University officials reconsidered the idea after the death of Tyler Clementi, a freshman who made national headlines when he committed suicide last semester.
Clementi, 18, jumped off the George Washington Bridge a few days after his roommate allegedly used a webcam to watch him in an intimate encounter with another man. It is unclear exactly why Clementi committed suicide, but the freshman's death prompted Rutgers officials to take a closer look at how gay students are treated on campus.
The number of colleges offering mixed-sex housing options has been growing steadily in recent years, according to the National Student Genderblind Campaign, a grassroots group that advocates for changes in campus housing policies. Columbia University, George Washington University, Emory University, Ohio University and Ramapo College in Mahwah already offer gender-neutral options.
At Rutgers, the pilot program will be limited to Demarest Hall on the College Avenue Campus, New Gibbons on the Douglass Campus and some apartments in Rockoff Hall, a 12-story building in downtown New Brunswick.
Students will get into the dorms through the student housing lottery, campus officials said. Then, students will be given the option of naming a roommate of either sex. Parents will not be permitted to veto their children's roommates. Undergraduates will not be asked to reveal if they are gay.
The halls will include gender-neutral bathrooms, where men and women share bathing facilities. Individual shower stalls will have doors instead of curtains to allow for more privacy, residence life officials said. Access to the locked bathrooms will be limited to residents with key cards.
The mixed-sex rooms will not be available to freshmen, Rutgers officials said. But first-year gay and lesbian students will be given the option on their housing form of requesting a roommate who is supportive of their sexual preference.
