That's The Way It Is

The ghettoized first-years at 29 Garden St. are right to be angry. Faced this summer with housing assignments that left them in the cold northern end of campus--practically in the suburbs of the Quad houses--they had no choice but to claim their free T-shirts and halogen lamps and console themselves in their spacious quarters with hot chocolate brewed in their personal kitchens.

But in several months when they enter the housing lottery, supposedly they will have a choice--a non-ordered choice, that is. And they are starting to lobby now to make sure that they get into the houses they want.

Preferential treatment for residents of 29 Garden St. has sentimental appeal: these students got the worst deal their first year in school and they deserve special treatment in their next housing decision.

But giving them preferential treatment is not the answer. The inequalities in first-year housing are randomly assigned. Some have bad roommates, some have small rooms. Some rooms have mice, some have excessive noise from Mass. Ave. These burdens are placed evenly throughout the first-year class. In fact, some of these problems continue in the upperclass houses--sophomore rooms are randomly assigned within houses, and junior and senior lottery numbers are also randomly assigned. That's just the way it is.

Starting to add contingencies onto our non-ordered choice problems is the wrong precedent to set. No student should get preferential treatment. Loading up non-ordered choice with extras for students who felt wronged their first year will make the system complicated, unfair and perhaps logistically impossible.

The 29 Garden St. residents should take their chances with the housing lottery in the spring. Like the rest of us, they shouldn't have any other choice.