Word: fdo
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...FDO, by accommodating students' requests to be transferred out of living arrangements with a gay student, is ostensibly attempting to eliminate a potentially uncomfortable source of sexual tension. We hope that most students who request the change usually do not harbor negative feelings against gays in particular but rather feel somehow uncomfortable living with a gay roommate. The FDO, then, is merely alleviating a particular kind of discomfort...
...FDO would almost never give the same legitimacy to discomfort created on the basis of race or religion. Nor would they honor transfer requests solely on the basis of divergent academic interests or extracurricular pursuits. In many cases this discomfort is real and genuine. But FDO is right to intervene only if this discomfort should ever have dangerous consequences. We are not convinced that sexual orientation automatically creates such a danger...
Some students might genuinely feel uncomfortable living with a roommate who is gay. But that student should have the opportunity to use that discomfort as a learning experience. For the same reasons we promote religious and racial toleration, we cannot sanction the FDO's current policy towards gay roommates...
...staff's position regarding the FDO's rooming policy springs from good intentions. It would be a great pity if the administration sanctioned the legitimacy of homophobic bigotry, and we concur with the staff's contention that much could be learned in gay-straight rooming arrangements. Indeed, we are in favor of any sort of FDO policy that would actively discourage first-years from switching rooms simply on the basis of a roommate's sexual orientation. But the board is misguided in pressing to categorically deny first-years with homosexual roommates the possibility of changing rooms...
...women, and not because they think that all women are attracted to them, but simply because the possibility of that attraction is experienced as an invasion of privacy. Some might find those same sensibilities offended if they were compelled to live in close quarters with a homosexual, and the FDO should not peremptorily forbid rooming changes to those who find such a situation untenable...