Co-ed dorms blamed for prevalence of sex and drinking
Catholic University is reverting to single-sex dorms and is not reserving it only for freshmen.
As the AP reports, John Garvey — president of Catholic University — announced the decision in an opinion piece printed by the Wall Street Journal on Monday. In it, Garvey argues that two of the serious ethical challenges students are facing on campus are “binge drinking” and “the culture of hooking up.”
In order to battle these challenges, or (as Garvey no doubt hopes) to eliminate them, Garvey announced that the campus will be reinstating single-sex dorms. Next year, all freshmen will be required to live in the single-sex dorms and the change will effect all classes in the coming years. Garvey said that students will be “better off” with the reversion to single-sex dorms, but, it seems to me, that the activities Garvey describes will take place regardless of whether dorms are single-sex or co-ed.
As anyone who has ever gone to college knows, sex and drinking are and have always been a huge part of campus life, for better or for worse. It takes place, to some degree, on every campus, regardless of the values or ethics preached by the school. And it is naive to believe that it takes place because of one sex’s accessibility to the other, or because one sex is having a bad influence on the other.
Apparently Garvey doesn’t think that binge drinking or hooking up occurs between members of the same sex.
Sorry, President Garvey, but students are going to hook up and drink. They are adults who are exercising their ability to behave with the freedom of an adult. Sure, some are going to engage in both drinking and sex to excess and they may regret it later, but that is a lesson they must learn themselves. Dorms may be the most common place for drinking and sex to occur, but it’s not the only one. Off-campus housing and local bars and clubs will simply take over where dorms left off.
