Editorial: At WVU, no bed mates for bad roommates

So maybe your roommate has a propensity for sneaking some of the food mom sent you or keeping… So maybe your roommate has a propensity for sneaking some of the food mom sent you or keeping the lights on all night when you have an 8 a.m. class the next morning. Yes, roommates can be tough to live with. But there’s perhaps no greater annoyance than the roommate who constantly has his significant other — or friend with a few benefits — spending the night and creating an uncomfortable situation.

West Virginia University has a policy that forbids visitors of the opposite sex to spend the night in all of its dorms except for one upperclassman, university-affiliated apartment building, according to the Associated Press. Discontent with the rule, WVU students planned a sit-in protest outside some of its dorms.

By any measure the policy is old fashioned. However, a blanket policy like this is an efficient way to deal with the issue even if it’s markedly unpopular. Part of the college experience involves learning to negotiate conflict with roommates. Still, there will assuredly be other dilemmas to work out.

Most schools that administer more stringent policies when it comes to interaction — especially overnight interaction — between sexes are private and religiously affiliated. WVU is neither. West Virgina is a more conservative state, however, and WVU is the largest college in the state. It has an undergraduate population of around 21,000 students. While a more conservative decision like banning overnight stays intends to be a practical measure of minimizing conflict between roommates, it could be a reflection of the state’s more traditional values.

Freshmen at WVU are required to live on campus, but after that they’re free to move away. Those who aren’t satisfied with the policy can move off campus for the rest of their college career.

The school’s policy limits debate over an issue that’s, well, particularly sensitive and difficult to talk about. The University has students sharing a room fill out contracts that address everything from taking out the trash to deciding lights-out time. Pitt and many schools offer such contracts, but the documents feel more perfunctory than authoritative.

An editorial in The Daily Athenaeum — WVU’s student newspaper — praised the overturning of this policy when it was first proposed earlier this year. But some WVU students find the policy discriminatory toward heterosexuals. Because the policy only restricts opposite sex visitors, homosexual couples could still allow same-sex guests and significant others to spend the night. The editorial said: “The current policy discriminates against individuals of all sexual preferences, as dorm residents can only sign in guests of the same gender … The policy inadvertently favors gay and lesbian couples while simultaneously ignoring their existence.”

In these situations, roommates would have to rely on proper communication — which, in an ideal world, would be the solution to this issue.