Monday, July 18, 2011

A Human Right?

A law professor at George Washington University is suing the president of the Catholic University of America over a CUA decision to make their dorms sex-segregated.  CUA claims this is being done to cut down on binge drinking and indiscriminate sex in the dorms.  The lawyer from GWU claims that same-sex dormitories violate "human rights".  


I'm not going to debate the merits of CUA's assumptions about separate buildings for the sexes cutting down on drinking and sex.  I've been in both segregated and mixed-sex living arrangements before, and it wasn't the sleeping arrangements that kept the young people from mixing, mingling, and pairing off.  It was the threat of punishment if you got caught, in both circumstances, that kept things to a dull roar.


Anyway, I'm curious as to which human rights the good professor believes are being violated here.  Is it the right of 18 year old boys to have their girlfriends only a couple of doors down?  Or for drunken teenagers to only have to crawl a few yards to get to their bed after getting blotto with the guys or girls down the hall?  Maybe it's the right to not have to undergo the 'walk of shame' the morning after hooking up?


No-one forces anyone to go to CUA.  As long as CUA publishes this policy and enforces it equally to all students, I don't see a problem.  If a young person doesn't want to go to a school that enforces some kind of conduct standard, then there are many other schools that are a bit more liberal in student living arrangements and behavior. Hey, the school has the word 'Catholic' in its name.  I'm kind of surprised they had co-ed dorms in the first place.  When it has the name of a major denomination right there on the label, I expect more conservative rules for students than I would at the University of California Communal Social Experiment and Educational Cooperative at Berkeley.


And if you ask, you'll find a certain father in Kentucky is looking for a cloistered all girl school for Girlie Bear.  I'm not so old I don't remember what boys are like between the ages of 18 and 30.

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