Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Moral Puritans at Illinois State

Posted by Ed Brayton on December 1, 2005
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From Agape Press, via Bartholemew:

Some parents with students at Illinois State University want the school to reverse its policy permitting professional staff to engage in unmarried cohabitation in student dormitories.

One father, Greg Myers, says he was outraged to learn that the school’s Student Affairs Office allowed his daughter’s dorm supervisor to cohabitate with his girlfriend in ISU’s Watterson Hall.

Myers’ daughter, a senior at ISU, is a resident assistant in the dorm. Like her father, she objects to the staff cohabitation policy because of her Christian beliefs. The university’s Housing Services office also permits staff members with same-sex romantic partners to live together in student dorms.

In related stories, a group of Muslims is protesting the university’s policy of allowing pork to be served in dorm cafeterias and a group of Mormons wants the university to stop allowing its faculty to drink coffee. Or they could, ya know, mind their own freaking business.

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Comments

  1. #1 Treban
    December 2, 2005

    I would like them to stop serving factory farmed chicken. After driving through Nebraska and smelling a total of 93 miles of chiken farms – one of them was stinking up a full 28 miles by itself – I can’t believe they are quite right. Therefor everyone at Illinois state should stop eating it. And while were at it – they should disallow homuhsexuals from cohabitating too. . .

  2. #2 Jim Ramsey
    December 2, 2005

    What impresses me is that Illinois State has created an entire bureaucracy to manage unmarried cohabitation, i.e. the “Student Affairs Office”.

  3. #3 raj
    December 2, 2005

    Ed at December 1, 2005 08:06 PM

    Um, unless I am missing something, it strikes me that UI is not shoving pork down the throats of Muslim students, or forcing Mormons to drink coffee. I hate coffee, by the way, and refuse to drink it. I prefer iced tea, but even water will do in a pinch.

    On the subject of the post, when I was in the college dorm (late 1960s) there was no opposite sex cohabitation after, say 11PM. Regardless of the religious belief, we found that cohabitation, even before 11PM, could be quite annoying to other residents of the dormitory. The noise really did disturb studying.

    The otherwise “co-habitors” should be advised to rent a hotel room or to “get it on” in the middle of the day when the probability of disturbing other people might be minimized..

  4. #4 decrepitoldfool
    December 2, 2005

    ‘Cohabiting’ in the middle of the day? One might disturb others that way.

    I work at ISU and, well, it would be a minority issue here to be sure. We respect others’ differences here.

  5. #5 raj
    December 2, 2005

    decrepitoldfool at December 2, 2005 10:58 AM

    Um, you haven’t heard of hotels that rent rooms by the hour?

    Irrespective of that, one would expect that–if we are limiting this to University–most students would be out at class or at the dining hall in the middle of the day.

    An obvious alternative for people who want to co-habit is that they get off-campus apartments. I spent two years in on-campus dormitories and found that the creaping “co-eding” of the dormitories to be quite counter-productive to those of us who wanted to study, largely because of the noise. There was plenty of off-campus housing that was available to them, but they would have to pay for it.

  6. #6 Ed Brayton
    December 2, 2005

    raj wrote:

    Um, unless I am missing something, it strikes me that UI is not shoving pork down the throats of Muslim students, or forcing Mormons to drink coffee.

    I’m well aware of that, and that was entirely the point. A dorm supervisor having a live-in girlfriend also doesn’t force anyone to do anything and thus is equally unjustified.

  7. #7 ThugNasty
    December 2, 2005

    A little clarification: at illinois state university, the RAs are supervised by full-time professional staff members. These supervisors already have masters degrees and are not students (unless they elect to take classes on a part time basis in addition to working). The supervisors manage the dorms in which they work and supervise anywhere from 6 to 20 RAs. As part of the building management, these supervisor are required to live in the buildings they supervise in provided apartments (not dorm rooms). These apartments are usually located in an area separate from the student rooms and are often so out of the way that most students do not know that the professional staff members live there. These supervisors range in age from being near retirment to being fresh out of graduate school. Some of them have families of their own that live with them in the dorms, and some of them are single. The university allows unmarried couples to live together in these apartments only after proving to the administation that they are involved in a long-term committed relationship. This is done by showing proof of commitment (joint financial responsibility, joint ownership of a vehicle or property, beneficiary on life insurance, previous cohabitation, etc.) Both partners are then required to sign an affidavit attesting to the accuracy of the presented documents. The process is quite involved, and if the supervisor’s partner moves out, the supervisor is not allowed to have anyone else move in for a period of at least 6 months. Illinois State University does not take cohabitation lightly.

    While I believe that everyone is entitled to an opinion, the actions being taken by Myers is absolutely ridiculous. If he and his daughter are that appaled by the policy, then they can seek higher education at a place the better fits their lifestyle. These actions are the actions of a bigot, and it is sad that these people are using Christianity to cloak their obvious intolerance. People like these are really painting other Christians in a bad light. I’m also pretty sure that God knows the differnce.

  8. #8 raj
    December 3, 2005

    It has been a long time since I have been in the midwest. Is Illinois State University different from University of Illinios (primarily Bloomington)? I have never heard of Illinois State University.

  9. #9 Ed Brayton
    December 3, 2005

    raj wrote:

    Is Illinois State University different from University of Illinios (primarily Bloomington)? I have never heard of Illinois State University.

    I think you’re confusing Indiana University with the University of Illinois. IU is in Bloomington, Indiana; U of I is in Champaign, Illinois. And yes, ISU is separate, but considerably smaller I believe.

  10. #10 raj
    December 4, 2005

    Ed Brayton at December 3, 2005 02:46 PM

    I think you’re confusing Indiana University with the University of Illinois.

    Undoubtedly true. I had actually applied to UnivIllinois for graduate studies in physics (they had a great solid state physics program) in the early 1970s, but decided to go to law school, instead.

    Is Illinois State University the same as the University of Illinois? I clicked around the ISU web site for a bit and was unable to find out where they were located.

    ThugNasty at December 2, 2005 06:17 PM

    A little clarification: at illinois state university, the RAs are supervised by full-time professional staff members.

    It has been a long time since I resided in a University dorm (that was at Ohio State in the late 1960s) but I suspect that that was the case there, as well. This was in days before colleges implemented “co-ed” dorm policies. When I was in the male OSU dorms in the late 1960s, women were required to leave by, say 11PM, but I heard more than a few people complain that they were allowed there that late because of the noise. I was in a dorm that was largely occupied by engineering students, so we didn’t have so much of a problem.

  11. #11 Ed Brayton
    December 4, 2005

    raj wrote:

    When I was in the male OSU dorms in the late 1960s, women were required to leave by, say 11PM, but I heard more than a few people complain that they were allowed there that late because of the noise. I was in a dorm that was largely occupied by engineering students, so we didn’t have so much of a problem.

    raj, are you implying that engineers can’t get women? LOL.

  12. #12 ThugNasty
    December 4, 2005

    Indiana University Bloomington (http://www.iub.edu)

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    (http://www.uiuc.edu)

    Illinois State University
    (http://www.ilstu.edu)

    They’re all different schools. It can be confusing since Inidana Univeristy is in Bloomington, IN and Illinois State is in Bloomington-Normal, IL