DEMOCRATIC people value choice. We value it both because we distrust authorities' potential to abuse power, and because we believe that, generally, individuals can make good choices for themselves. We limit people's rights only when exercising them would harm others. Right now, though, a number of students at the University are promoting a plan to do away with a harmless, rather fundamental right: the right to choose one's housing.
An effort is underway, directed by several minority student groups, as well as the Student Council Committee on Diversity Initiatives, to replace the current first-year housing application with random housing assignment. The motives behind the randomization plan are fairly simple. Essentially, its supporters think incoming University students should have no decision over where they live. Rather than allow them to rank their preferences when applying for dorms, they want students to be randomly assigned to a dorm. Despite the fact that the housing application system is race-blind, they are distressed that it results in a higher percentage of minority students living in the Alderman dorms than the McCormick dorms.
Why should students be able to choose where they live? There is the simple but important fact that each student spends thousands of dollars on housing for his or her first year at the University. There is also the fact that most first-years, being eighteen-years-old, are adults. They need to make their own decisions, weighing the pros and cons of different options, and housing is one opportunity to exercise that skill.
The more important point is that students know what environment is best for them. The New Dorms and the Old Dorms have different personalities. They have different locations, different layouts and their own unique appeal to students. It probably is not to say too controversial, as many students heard this during their information tours, that the hall style of the old dorms is more social. The suite style of the new dorms is more conducive to smaller, tighter social circles. Students care about the different social environments, and the University should take their opinions seriously.
Why, then, is there a higher percentage of minority students in New Dorms than in Old Dorms? Associate Dean Of Students and Director Of Residence Life, Angela Davis mentioned several commonly cited reasons for this phenomenon. Students are often advised on housing decisions by siblings or friends who currently attend the school. This would tend to keep dorms occupied by students from similar social circles. African-American students, in particular, have said that they were influenced by Spring Fling, which is held in the Alderman dorms.
The specific motives are not relevant for allowing individuals to choose their own residence is perfectly just. It would be a problem worth getting upset over if University policy discriminated on the basis of race in housing policy. But no one's rights are being violated; the University allows all students, regardless of their race, an equal opportunity to choose housing.
I, for one, have become tired of "diversity" drowning out every other consideration in so many debates. It is an admirable, if nebulous, concept, but housing choice opponents have perverted it in their rhetoric. They are not concerned with anyone's individual rights, for the current housing policy does not infringe upon them. Instead, they are twisting "diversity" and "tolerance" to mean nothing more than racial percentages. They think it is a problem that a higher percentage of minority students freely choose to live in the new dorms than in the old dorms. The randomizers believe students really can't be trusted to choose about where to live. Instead, they think that diversity, as expressed only by a simple racial percentage, is more important than first-year students' opinions.
This plan would not have the effects its proponents expect. College students cannot be coerced into positive racial views -- at least not in significant numbers. These aren't impressionable kindergartners; they are eighteen-year-old college students with entrenched views and preferences. Forcing a student to live in a dorm ill-suited for his or her personality will only breed resentment and unhappiness.
Taking away individuals' choices to achieve the goals of a few is unconscionable. The opinion of the average first-year student matters just as much as that of the president of a Minority Rights Coalition or the chairman of a Student Council committee. Students are more than the subjects of a social engineering experiment; they are individuals with different opinions, different needs, and different desires, and our housing system should treat them as such.
Stephen Parsley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at sparsley@cavalierdaily.com.
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