Student Assembly

R.3 Resolution Requesting the Implementation of Gender-Neutral Housing in the Residence Halls

Whereas, a student should have the privilege to preference any other student they feel the most comfortable living with, regardless of gender;

Be it therefore resolved, a portion number of the suites (apartment style living units) in Carl Becker, Alice Cook, and Hans Bethe House along with the future suites planned at Cornell will be assigned to be gender-neutral beginning in the fall of 2008 with the following stipulations:

1. All participating students are non-freshmen and are over the age of 18;
2. Students who block with members of the same gender but do not have enough students in their group to fill all the rooms in the suite, or students who choose to live in suites individually will be asked if they prefer to live with the same gender. If a student answers yes, then the suite will be designated as either male or female depending on the student’s gender on the Cornell database. Thus, future students who choose to live in these suites must be the same gender as the other students.
3. When two students of the opposite gender have chosen the same suite, the suite will be designated as “no-gender;”
4. Residence Halls may aim to keep a certain quota of men and women for the building as a whole and for individual halls, but the lottery system should be constructed to prevent signifying suites as “male” or “female” as much as possible.

Be it further resolved, that select non-single rooms on west campus beginning in the fall of 2008 will be designated as gender neutral with the following stipulations:

1. All participating students are non-freshmen and are over the age of 18;
2. All students involved must agree to living with each other

Be it finally resolved, that the SA committee on Residence and Campus Life will further study the implementation of gender-neutral housing in the 2008–2009 academic year;

Respectively Submitted,

Vincent Hartman ‘08
Arts & Sciences Representative