Time for a Change

WE'VE BEEN here before. Almost two years ago to the week, the Civil Liberties Union of Harvard (CLUH) asked the College to end its anachronistic policy of barring co-educational rooming groups. Not much was done back then.

The College promised to study the proposal, look at other schools with co-ed rooms and gauge student opinion. Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 assigned the research job to the student-administrator Committee on House Life (COHL). The Undergraduate Council told its residential committee to study the possibility--that committee swiftly responded by creating yet another committee (a special subcommittee for research).

No luck. After all of this furious bureaucratic committee-forming, Jewett got away with non-position positions such as, "There are arguments for and arguments against. At this point I think the weight is probably against..."

All of which makes the College's most recent change of heart encouraging. Jewett now says he does "not have any principles against the proposal," and Thomas A. Dingman '67, the associate dean in charge of the house system, said last week that the change would not create prohibitive administrative difficulties.

And this time, CLUH averted much of the desire to pigeonhole the proposal in several committees by presenting its own study of the issue. Still, Jewett seems bent on at least some of the old foot-dragging, saying that the College must again examine other schools' policies and, of course, measure any negative reaction from alumni and parents--the real reason the College has not acted on the issue before now.

JEWETT SHOULD wait no longer. As Helen H. Hill '92, a resident of a sanctioned co-ed room in Adams House, said last week, "students should be able to decide how they want to live." As we've said before, the idea that Harvard should go about limiting students' right to determine their own lifestyles is simply ludicrous.

The real problem is Harvard's antiquated attitude that it should serve in loco parentis when it comes to its students' personal lives. Academically, the adage goes, "Mother Harvard does not coddle her young." But when students walk from the library to their bedrooms, Mother Harvard seems to be waiting with his and hers chastity belts.

Such hypocrisy is further heightened by the de facto existence of co-ed rooms all over campus--and the sanctioned co-ed rooms in Adams and Mather. Jewett says that it will take time to find a "guaranteed backup if problems [arise] in the co-ed setup." But many problems exist now because men and women cannot room with one another.

Couples who want to live together, for example, must make arrangements with other roommates, creating unnecessary friction. And men and women who are simply friends must find people of the same sex to live with, creating a less than optimal rooming group.

Finally, the College seems to ignore gays and lesbians altogether in its housing policy. These students can live together with impunity. Heterosexuals who want to live together, however, are forced into annex housing, thereby denying them an integral part of the Harvard experience. This biased distinction should end.

Besides, if University Hall really wanted to prohibit sex on campus, it would have to force everyone into singles and constantly police the halls.

THE UNIVERSITY as a whole must realize that its students are not its legal wards. They are, instead, citizens who enter into a contract with the school to educate them--citizens whom Harvard never fails to treat as adults in the classroom. The terms of this contract cannot be defined solely by the administration. And in no case should those terms restrict students' choices about roommates and lifestyles.

It's time for the Harvard administration to grow up.