Through a series of, first, hilarious and, retrospectively, outrageous events, I was recently thrown into the center of the question about same-sex parietals on campus.
After the fact, I realized the greater implications of my interaction with the school authorities. Nobody has the right to demand somebody’s sexual preference, neither constitutionally nor personally.
So what about the rules? The more I’ve come to think about it, regardless of the school’s obligation to uphold rules, what happened to me was completely inappropriate.
But more importantly, what next? Is there any point in having a same-sex parietals rule? If there is, would any individual who came out be required to check with a faculty member before going into anybody’s room, opposite sex or not? The only options I see now are a) abolishing parietals rules or b) everybody has to get parietals with anybody, those of both same and different sexes. Is there a middle ground?