College Has Limited Co-ed Rooming Policy

To the editors:

Beccah G. Watson’s column “Finding Room for Co-ed Living” (Oct. 3) does not present an entirely accurate history of co-educational rooming groups at Harvard.

In the early 1990s, the Civil Liberties Union of Harvard (CLUH) lobbied the administration to allow House Masters discretion to allow co-ed rooming groups. CLUH pointed out that rooming groups that were co-ed in everything but name already were permitted, including the Senior House suite in Adams House and suites in the Mather House tower.

After consultations with CLUH, in 1993 the Committee on House Life amended the handbook for students, which previously had asserted that co-ed rooming groups were prohibited. Since then, House Masters have been authorized to allow co-ed rooming groups “where the configuration of space ensures a large degree of privacy.”

In particular, co-ed rooming groups may be allowed in “suites with single bedrooms having door locks that have been installed by the University and an unoccupied common room and [in] suites joined by an opened fire door where the number of students assigned is equal to the number of separate bedrooms and where there exists more than one bathroom and no walk-through bathrooms.”

Jol A. Silversmith ’94

Arlington, Va.

Oct. 3, 2003

The writer was co-director of the Civil Liberties Union at Harvard in 1992.