According to the latest petition to be submitted to Columbia administration, student agitation to go gender-neutral hasn’t died down.
On Monday, Everyone Allied Against Homophobia will deliver its gender-neutral housing petition to the Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams, School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora, and Student Affairs Dean Kevin Shollenberger. The petition has 969 signatures.
According to Avi Edelman, CC ’11 and president of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, vice president of the Columbia University Democrats, and an author of the original proposal to the administration advocating gender-neutral housing, supporters are not submitting the petition to be antagonistic but instead to underline the importance of the issue to students.
Statements of support from 20 different student organizations will accompany the petition. Q, Columbia Queer Alliance, Black Students Organization, Columbia University College Democrats, and GendeRevolution all signed statements, as well as the incoming Columbia College Student Council executive board and 2011 class council.
Students last semester formally proposed that Columbia introduce a gender-neutral housing option that would allow undergraduates to pick into rooms with someone of the opposite gender. In February, administrators announced that the option would not be introduced for the 2010-2011 year, despite student confidence that the proposal would go through.
Sarah Weiss, CC ’10 and CCSC vice president of policy, was one of the original writers of the proposal, and expects the petition will lead to “a more nuanced policy that recognizes a lot of kinds of student groups and their needs.” It also shows the administration that there is a larger support base for the policy beyond the proposal’s original writers.
The petition started circulating after Columbia nixed the gender-neutral housing proposal for the coming year—though Shollenberger at the time said the administration was considering a pilot program for the 2011-2012 school year, which would be part of the 2011 housing lottery.
“We’re trying to channel the negative energy that initially came out of the administration’s decision, and focus it on the more positive outcome,” Sean Udell, president-elect of the Columbia College class of 2011 and treasurer of the Columbia Queer Alliance, said of the petition’s creation. Udell was also one of the original writers of the proposal.
“One of the administration’s fears was that there wasn’t enough body of student support for it. We wanted to make sure that a huge portion of Columbia College is supporting this,” he added.
The delivery of the petition will coincide with the first gathering of the Open Housing Task Force, which will be made up of both students—Udell and Edelman included—and administrators, this Wednesday. The task force was promised by administrators after they announced that the gender-neutral housing pilot program was not going to be implemented next year. The task force will assess and revise the original proposal, and the group will submit a revised proposal to the administration for approval in September.
“I feel really good about the task force because it has a really clear mission,” Weiss said. “Getting the administrators to the table and having them say that, ‘this is something that we really think has potential,’ was the biggest hurdle.”
Udell added that Shollenberger’s involvement in the group will give their suggestions legitimacy.
He noted that he understands that the petition alone is not enough for policy change, but believes it will demonstrate student support for gender-neutral housing when the task force convenes—a sentiment that Edelman echoed.
“All of the students that have been working on this appreciate … that policy changes don’t happen overnight,” Edelman said. Still, he added, “This is an issue of treating students equally and making students feel comfortable and safe on campus … which requires a sense of urgency.”
Advocates for gender-neutral housing say that the change is necessary for making all students comfortable with their living situations. If it were approved, the option would not be opened to first-years.
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