Last week a Letter to the Editor posed the question: “How Harmful is Segregated Housing to Campus Diversity?”
So to start, I would like to give a little information about me: I am not affiliated with any Greek chapter, I am a white man, and I also identify as gay. Currently, I am a sophomore living in the Rainbow House, and I lived in Bishop Roberts last year.
In my first week at DePauw I felt like I had to make my identity known. I was gay and proud of it. With my openness came drawbacks; certain students wouldn’t want to be in the same environment as me and people made homophobic comments. This combination made me feel unwelcome.
A university that touted diversity and inclusion as I was applying, did not seem so diverse or inclusive in practice. I do want to note that I do not speak for the entirety of the LGBTQ+ community and that I thankfully have not experienced some things other people at DePauw have, like physical or sexual assault due to my sexual orientation.
After my freshman year, I hoped no other students would have to experience homophobia and could find a place of comfort in the optional housing provided by DePauw.
Unlike the DePauw bubble, in the “real world,” we are free to choose where we live and which communities we are a part of. At DePauw, your choice is limited to a few different boxes you can check off.
While the living situation on the Rainbow Floor may give students a different experience than I had, many will still experience homophobia on campus. They will still walk into many places that are not welcoming for their identities. These experiences will not stop existing with the advent of the Rainbow Floor.
I would like to tackle the questions in the original Letter to the Editor. As for the title, “How Harmful is Segregated Housing to Campus Diversity?” It’s important to define these terms. Segregation is when a group is required to stay in or out of certain spaces, which is not true in this instance.
The Rainbow Floor is an optional floor where students are able to live there whether they identify as LGBTQ+ or as an ally of the community. I would agree that segregated housing would be harmful to campus, but the Rainbow Floor is not segregation. It’s an optional living situation.
The author also poses the question, “Is it healthy to allow students the option of not integrating with students dissimilar to themselves in a residential setting?” If the voluntary partition of one group from another on the basis of shared interests is what the author deems segregation, then I would like to point to Greek houses. These housing arrangements have long been a part of DePauw.
Lastly, the question “Does it foster an us-them dynamic?” is brought up. I want to note that our identities themselves have othered us and minority groups on this campus are constantly treated as the “them” group whether they have special housing accommodations or not. People will still be discriminatory to minorities regardless of where they live.
Lastly, I ask this question to the original author: is it harmful to a student’s well-being to rob them of choice and force them into housing that already labels them as the “other”?