Randomizing Harvard Housing Was a Huge Mistake

With Housing Day now decidedly in the rearview mirror, it’s time we step back and take a gander at the Harvard housing system.

As we all know, every year on the Thursday before spring break, eager freshmen awake to hoards of upperclassmen banging on doors and chanting the name of their assigned House, where they’ll spend much of their next three years at Harvard. Each House has its own reputation — some more well-founded than others — that elicit reactions ranging from delight to despair (sorry, Quadlings).

Nowadays, these reputations are mostly due to tangible characteristics, like proximity to the Yard, unique amenities, renovations (or lack thereof), and so on. Before the housing system was randomized, though, Houses were far more than how far you had to walk to get to them.

Until 1996, freshmen were able to rank their preferred Houses, a system that was cherished by the overwhelming majority of the student body at the time. It was so revered, in fact, that this Editorial Board lamented its abandonment.

In large part, students loved the old system because it gave Houses a sense of personality: It established Adams as an inclusive home for queer students, Lowell as an oasis for the studious, and Mather as a home for the athletically inclined.

If the House ranking system wasn’t broken, why would Harvard try to fix it?

Put simply, administrators were concerned that students were self-segregating through their housing selections, causing them to lose out on the diverse student body our campus boasts.

Undoubtedly, this argument holds some truth. If all students of a certain background chose to congregate in a select few Houses — like Black students did in the Quad, for instance — then both they and others might not be exposed to the diversity that is so central to the Harvard experience.

The argument would be more convincing if the ranking policy forced students of the same identity to live in a certain House, or if the entirety of one’s Harvard experience revolved around House life. Neither of these things, however, are the case.

The same was true then as it is now: Students have never been institutionally mandated to delve into their House community and traditions headfirst. Then as now, students actively chose the spaces they wanted to spend their time in and were free to engage with their House as much — or as little — as they desired.

Just like today, students then participated in a myriad of extracurricular activities, ranging from social clubs to athletics to pre-professional organizations. They, like us, attended classes with peers from across the College, not just within their House.

In other words, despite their ability to choose a home they felt best reflected their interests and values, they nonetheless remained exposed to all of the richness of diversity that Harvard had to offer.

God forbid we students wrest even the tiniest sliver of personal autonomy from the hands of University administrators, who seem to relish in regulating every aspect of our college experience.

Instead of siloing students, ranking Houses provided an opportunity for students from different backgrounds to find a shared sense of community in their living space. Far from harming the college experience, distinct House cultures in fact engendered a sense of belonging for many students.

If you don’t believe me, listen to the words of these students themselves.

Black students, for instance, said that the Quad, being “the center of a Black community,” was a “really important and a very valued, treasured community and space.” One queer student claimed that ending the system “would be like taking all the gays and lesbians in San Francisco and New York and relocating them in even numbers throughout the United States […] at the expense of the vibrant gay adult community in New York and San Francisco today.”

Unfortunately, such fears proved true: There are very few — if any — true vestiges of the former House identities remaining. This, in turn, has led to a precipitous decline in House pride on campus, dampening a social scene where fun remains stubbornly elusive.

House choice has been made into a bogeyman of self-segregation. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, the previous system was a pathway to a deeper sense of belonging at Harvard that the administration slammed the door on.

Hopefully, this door won’t be closed forever.

Henry P. Moss IV ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a History concentrator in Eliot House.