WSU Overnight Rule Bends, But… Ban On Opposite Sex Stayover Is Bedrock Of Policy, Students Affairs Official Says

Washington State University officials Friday said they are “interpreting” their rule against residence hall visitors to allow all sorts of overnight guests - as long as they are not of the opposite sex.

In spite of student complaints, their interpretation is going to stay that way, too, they insisted.

“Is there a value judgment or statement made there? A value position? Absolutely,” said Gus Kravas, vice provost for student affairs. “It seems to me that we are not a value-free institution in that regard.”

Kravas’ remarks, the latest in a simmering dispute of student rights and university-sanctioned morality, brought a scoff from the head of WSU’s Residence Hall Association.

“How many more exceptions can we add to the rule?” said Jennifer Atkinson. “It’s really stupid and students are going to get even more irate.”

Kravas this week announced he would not move forward with plans to change the university’s decades-old ban on residence hall visitors between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Student leaders last year asked for a change in the rule - the only one of its kind at the state-run colleges - and a task force appointed by Kravas said guests should be allowed for up to three nights with a roommate’s permission.

Kravas said Friday the school is willing to bend the rule to accommodate visiting parents, out-of-town friends of the same sex and fellow students studying overnight.

“We choose to look at it in terms of what the intent of the policy is,” he said.

He acknowledged he has done no research into what the board of regents meant to do when it last considered the visitation rule in the early ‘70s. He said he is basing his judgment on what WSU is and what it stands for.

While many students and his own task force want the rule changed, he said a wide variety of other constituents - regents, parents and other taxpayers, for instance - don’t want the policy changed.

WSU President Sam Smith for the most part referred questions on the rule to Kravas during Friday’s start-of-the-semester news conference. However, he said Kravas’ task force looked at only “one aspect” of the visitation guidelines when issues like the university’s liability need to be considered as well.

He also said a number of students prefer the current policy, but feel it would be unpopular to speak in favor of it.

“We get a lot of contact from students that say, ‘Don’t change the policy,”’ he said.

Atkinson doubted his claim.

“Where are the numbers? Where is the proof? They don’t have any. I would like to see even a handful of letters” supporting the current policy.

The university has received letters from parents eager to keep the policy, and R.M. “Mac” Crow, a WSU regent who studied the issue this summer, said he would oppose a change on moral grounds.

Atkinson insisted the change is not about sex, however. “Students who want to have sex are going to find time to have it,” she said.

Were sex the issue, students could complain the policy’s current interpretation favors homosexuality and discriminates against heterosexuals, said John Robinson, former RHA president.

Rather, the issue is one of freedom and being “treated as adults,” Atkinson said.

Since word circulated that the administration will not push to change the rule, Atkinson said she has heard only from students in favor of a change.

“Three or four of them have said, ‘I’m going to be up on the front lines marching,”’ she said.

, DataTimes