With the recent unveiling of a gender-neutral housing pilot program, the role of gender in housing decisions is on the minds of many students. Gender, either directly or indirectly, has a major effect on where all students live on campus.

It is easier to get into some campus dorms and houses as a male than a female. Last year, for example, Kairos and Chi Theta Chi were harder to draw into for females. But males had a harder time getting into other residences, like Phi Sig and the Grove houses.

Gender can also affect the intricacies of room distribution within dorms. Consider, for example, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Stanford and other universities interpret this U.S. law, famous for its effect on student-athlete scholarships, as requiring equal quality of housing options for males and females. On the surface, this rule appears fair. In most cases, the assurance of equality of singles between the sexes on the Row is appropriate in an abstract sense. But some flaws exist with regard to specific, real-life applications of the principle.

In certain cases, the policy hinders the ability of a well-meaning staff to improve its residents’ quality of life. Sometimes it is quite beneficial and appropriate to award a single to one sex that is, by law, assigned to another. For example, if a male living in a Row house wanted to move into a vacant single in the house, the student could only move into the room if it was designated for males. If two male roommates were not getting along, and the staff strongly believed that splitting them up would help the entire community, one of them would be unable to utilize the vacant single. A female student in the house, however, would be able to move in, even if her move would not benefit the social community of the house.

This example shows that, while the principle of equal quality of housing options between the sexes is attractive, in practice it sometimes fails in its underlying goal of providing a social environment for the greatest benefit of all citizens. The world is not perfect, of course, and one may conclude that the discontent of a few individuals, such as in the situation described above, is worth the overall attainment of equality of opportunity for men and women. This point is very persuasive, and there is no need to reform Title IX itself. The current problem, however, could be improved with a simple reform of accounting by Housing.

The female who attained the single in the case presented above also left a de facto single behind, since nobody moved into her old room in a two-room double. This new room, while being interpreted by everyone in the house community as adding to the single-count of a particular gender, did not change the tally in the eyes of Housing’s Title IX calculation. Interestingly, two-room doubles are not counted as singles, although in many ways our community interprets them as fairly close substitutes. It would seem that in order to truly provide equality between the sexes, the individual rooms in two-room doubles would also need to be added to the calculation. This simple change in operation would improve the quality of life for many on the Row, bringing the letter of the law in accordance with the spirit and potentially giving staff more leeway to make housing changes. Empowering resident staff members to make such decisions within carefully-defined limits — especially after the deadline for new resident admission — would maintain the equality of opportunity mandated by Title IX, while also allowing flexibility in dealing with harmful residential-life issues that can be easily helped by moving around students within houses or dorms.