Old Queens on the campus of Rutgers.

Co-ed dorms are nothing new; a floor for men, a floor for women, shared common areas… it’s a pretty common arrangement for college housing, but Rutgers University is looking to shake things up with their housing assignments.  However, the latest trend isn’t co-ed dorms, it’s co-ed dorm rooms.  That’s right, men and women will be able to live in the same dorm rooms at Rutgers starting in the fall.  Man, woman, gay, straight, or other, Rutgers University will now allow you to live with whomever or whatever you please in their dorms.  This is a pilot program at the New Brunswick campus; a smaller-scale pilot will take place at Rutgers’ Newark campus.

The root cause of this concern?  The suicide of Tyler Clementi.  Clementi is the Rutgers student who committed suicide after his male roommate made an illicit sex tape of him with another male in their dorm room.  Since that, Rutgers has been taking a look at their housing policy and they have decided that the best way to keep these problems from happening is to have gender-neutral housing.  For example, a gay male can live with a straight female if he’s more comfortable in that situation, straight couples will now enjoy the cohabitational benefits formerly available only to gay couples, and so on.

Will this make a big difference?  I’m not so sure.  Still, it will definitely be an interesting experiment.

Tags: Rutgers, Rutgers to allow men and women to share dorm rooms, gender-blind dorm rooms, gender-neutral dorm rooms, Rutgers to introduce gender-neutral dorm rooms, men and women living together in dorms, New Brunswick, New Jersey, New Brunswick campus to have gender-neutral housing, college housing experiment

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