Do you think USC should have gender-neutral housing? Student Government and USC’s BGLSA group want to know.
The two groups are conducting a joint survey to see what students think of gender-neutral dorms and bathrooms, which supporters say would make the campus safer and more welcoming to gay and transgender students.
“We’re asked for gender, male or female, and several very important decisions are made based on that — who your roommates can be and what your living environment’s going to be — and there’s a lot of students who don’t feel comfortable with that choice,” said Brandon White, Student Government’s secretary of organizational outreach. “People cannot learn if they do not like where they’re living.”
White, who doubles as BGLSA’s chair of advocacy initiatives, said he hopes to take the results to student senate, the house of delegates and the Residence Hall Association next semester in hopes of gaining their endorsements.
But a gender-neutral plan would need top university administrators’ approval, said Kirsten Kennedy, director of University Housing.
In theory, the survey could be USC’s first step toward designating some suites or halls as gender-neutral, meaning students’ gender and sex wouldn’t be considered in their room assignments.
In practice, however, gender-neutral housing doesn’t look to be coming to USC any time soon.
University spokesman Wes Hickman said in an email that USC has no plans to add gender-neutral rooms. The university gets between one and three requests for special accommodations most years, and it handles them on an case-by-case basis.
Such requests used to only come from upperclassmen, Kennedy said, but more and more freshmen are making them.
Student Government hasn’t endorsed the idea, Student Body President Chase Mizzell said in an email, adding, “We serve as the representatives of the student body.”
“I believe the University is committed to promoting acceptance and equality and will be collaborative in evaluating the merits of each of these ideas,” Mizzell said.
At other schools, the process has been fraught with controversy.
UNC-Chapel Hill’s trustees voted earlier this year to allow gender-neutral dorms on campus, but the UNC system’s board of governors overruled it, banning gender-neutral housing on the UNC system’s 17 campuses.
In the Southeastern Conference, only Vanderbilt offers gender-neutral housing, though others, including Missouri, are considering the idea.
“There other SEC (schools) that are doing it, and they’re not bursting into flames. There are other schools that are considering this,” White said. “This is a time when USC can be a trend-setter.”
The focus of one of the survey’s questions — adding unisex bathrooms — is already happening, Kennedy said.
Housing has so far made 35 single-person bathrooms unisex, and 21 more are on the way. The process began a year and a half ago.
The survey also includes a question about adding “gender identity” to USC’s non-discrimination policy.
“That’s not something that should be debated,” White said.