While “congregation” is a worthy goal, and maybe even necessary given the status of LGBT issues not just at Dartmouth but nationally, my concern is that in having a permanent space for LGBT students, we become apathetic to improving spaces elsewhere on campus and that we emphasize an us vs. them mentality demonstrated by my dear friend Mr. Melikian’s statement, “This is ours.” Perhaps we are unfortunately at a point where LGBT students feel the need to self-segregate themselves, but our goal should always be to arrive at a point where that no longer necessary and I fear a permanent LGBT house would only entrench the status quo.

Brian, if you hold that concern for an LGBT House, then I assume you must hold it for all other affinity houses and desire the ban all of all them too? This is no different than African American, Native American, Chinese Culture, French Language, etc, affinity programs— it is a “home base,” and providing a safe space that will allow students to constructively work on addressing other problems from this place.

This is a false hope. Just like other “affinity” house, this LGBT house will promote self-segregation instead of integration under one banner, and universally held values – represented in part at Dartmouth by the Greek system. Gay people are still on the outside looking in here. That’s what I fear.

The gay community should join the Greek community instead of clamoring that it should be destroyed. An affinity house instead of a Greek letter house won’t address any of the ongoing problems gay people face within the Greek system – for any gay person in the basement or for gay people within their own Greek letter house, at formals and such.

Despite it’s shortcomings, the Greek system is an integral and positive force in the Dartmouth community. Gay people should be encouraged to rush any house they want. In addition, to that a LGBT Greek letter house will further bring gay people into the Greek community (IFC, Panhellenic Council). An affinity house will only exclude them and strengthen an us v. them/pick-one-or-the-other dichotomy, especially when it comes time for sophomores to rush.

I really hate…hate to mention it, but who is paying to build this house? And why do LGBT’s who want to be accepted and integrated like anyone else, want to just play with themselves as if they were aliens? also, I can’t say I haven’t heard goobledygook just as bad as this from Dean Johnson and the usual crew before, but I haven’t seen anything worse. “Businesses are looking for LGBT expertise in the workplace.” “This is valuable business experience the LGBT’s will get playing with themselves in their college paid house.” What a crock of BULL.

@Anon: All dorms, college-owned apartments, affinity houses, and sororities, and some fraternities and co-ed houses, are “college-paid houses.” Residents pay rent to the college.

I do agree with my good friend Mr. Giunta on the point that self-segregation is a concern. In fact, when I talked with the reporter, I brought that up as a valid concern, but followed it up with stating that the potential benefits of the LGBT affinity house outweighs that risk.

Now to refute some of the counterarguments posted in these comments:

Senior: Why should Dartmouth have one universally shared set of values represented at all by the Greek system? While the Dartmouth Greek system is produces less toxicity while providing more campus-wide benefit at Dartmouth when compared to other campuses, that doesn’t mean that, as a community, we should push for more centralization of the school’s social infrastructure within the Greek system. It simply gives people who don’t wish to interface with that less of an ability to come to Dartmouth, and reduces the over diversity of thought and perspective on this campus. It is fine to have places that are outside the mainstream social infrastructure for people who want to be outside the mainstream social infrastructure.

And the gay community does join the Greek system. I have no formal numbers about this, given that I don’t think those exist, but there are plenty of gay people within the Greek system. However, it seems like there aren’t as many because they aren’t spread evenly over all of the houses. You can tell how LGBTQ-friendly a house is pretty easily here at Dartmouth, given how skewed these numbers are.

And you’re right in that an affinity house wouldn’t necessarily address the issues that LGBTQ students face within the Greek system, and that is fine. An affinity house would push more more non-Greek social spaces, which is something that this campus needs (again, this is coming from someone who is Greek-affiliated). Gays within the Greek system is an entirely separate issue that needs to be dealt with both systemically and on a house-by-house basis.

However, the solution for this is not an LGBT Greek letter house. There are already houses that LGBTQ people can join. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that each house has a unique personality, and if you’re a gay person and you don’t really fit in with any of the explicitly gay-friendly houses, then you are SOL, your choices are to either join a house that accepts you for being gay but where your common ground is otherwise limited, or be closeted and join a house where your other common ground is met but your sexual orientation has to stay under wraps. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Anon: It is being paid for by the college, just like the college-owned Greek letter organization buildings. It will be part of ORL’s housing.

You imply there are only two choices, “integrate into mainstream (read: straight) society, or play off with yourselves and never interact with mainstream (read: still straight) society.” That is obviously not how the world works. Most gay people maintain various social circles with different ratios of LGBTQ-people, and it’s pretty common for gay people to have at least one social circle that is dominantly queer, given how much natural numbers skew academic/professional/etc life in the other direction. It gives us the opportunity to talk about things that, quite frankly, straight people tend not to be willing to talk about/don’t have the cultural background to talk about. Institutionalizing a location for this type of circle to form seems completely fine, given that every other social space on this campus, as well as the entire idea of absolute integration, work against this end.

@Senior – The Greek system best represents the value systems of Dartmouth, eh? Does that include casually tossing around the word “faggot” and generally creating an unwelcoming if not explicitly hostile environment for LGBT folks? And do you actually think LGBT-ers should make a stronger effort to position themselves in this sort of environment? Does that really make sense to you? Or if you think it should be the priority of the LGBT community to create a more welcoming Greek system, is it really fair to place that burden on them? Shouldn’t the Greek system as it currently stands take on the effort of creating a more inclusive environment? Because it hasn’t bothered to do that—or even attempt to reform in any way, really—so far.

Encouraging LGBT students to rush is among the stupidest recommendations I’ve ever heard. The LGBT cannot work from within a venomous system to change it.

@Anonymous 16 1:54 pm What words do the LGBTers toss around about the frats and Dartmouth College? Why not report whatever insults those are? Also, please name a fraternity built with College money? Now name some sororities built with College money. Now name an LGBT house built with College money? Now explain why the College should pay for and build one? What do fraternities owe to LGBT students that they don’t owe to anyone? The College is promoting LGBTers explicitly in the College bureaucracy with support staff, programs and now a free house. Anything else that can be done for you? Force people to act the way you want them to act? That isn’t a legitimate request. That is a request to get your way…just like children and adolescents. The new “Social justice” organic farm DOC barn being built for the left will be for you darlings and your new house will be built for you…as all of the bringing to campus of different colors, religions, sexes, and sexual preferences is resulting in the College and each groups' leaders to demand and get segregated privileges at the expense of everyone else. Now doesn’t that make you feel good? Like a 2 year old should?

@anon 2:14:

LGBT folk tend to toss around phrases like “the frats are not, as a whole, welcoming to LGBT folk,” and similar phrases regarding behaviors, not immutable aspects. There is a key distinction in saying “I think that this practice is bad” versus “I think you are a fundamentally inferior person because of an immutable characteristic.”

The college has paid for the houses of many frats and sororities. Most of the sororities and a fair number of frats are college owned. I really shouldn’t have to give examples here because of how numerous these houses are.

The college should build one because of the fact that it is in the college’s best interest to optimize the quality of student and member of society that it produces. Improving inclusivity improves the overall quality of student produced, because it enables the college to draw from a larger range of people. By having a good LGBT support system at a systemic level, the college enables itself to draw more from the LGBT community.

The frats don’t “owe” anyone anything. That they even throw open events so frequently is not the norm of Greek systems. However, they are dependent on the rest of campus and the administration being okay with their presence to survive, and they have to be able to recruit underclassmen. Anti-gay sentiments are quite clearly going out of style, and the Greek system itself has even been following this trend. If the Greek system were to lag too far behind the overall campus/societal climate, I guarantee you it would be forced either to change or shut down, given that the Greek system is only allowed to exist at the permission of the college.

The college explicitly promotes LGBT students because, as a group, LGBT students have a harder time socially. A lot of people are uncomfortable with their sexual orientation, or they have to deal with what is occasionally hostile social environment. Again, it’s in the college’s best interests to have this infrastructure in place in order to attract the top-tier LGBT students that it wants.

Yes, everybody in the community wants everyone to act the way that is not hostile towards LGBT people. That said, none of us can force you to do that. That said, we can call you out for it and not like you for it, and ask our friends to do the same. That’s sort of how social interactions work.

And the general ad hominem attacks against the LGBT community are not the most mature way to go about having this discussion. It certainly does not make your points seem any stronger.

Gee, Matthew Melikian, you sure like to write books as comments don’t you. “The frats as a whole are not welcoming to LGBT folk.”? What is it about LGBT “folk” that makes them talk like sock-puppets in some College LGBT fantasy orientation? The smell of fraud wafting up out of your verbal confection is nauseating. “Hi, I’m a nice LGBT'er and "Oooh, those frat boys are not as nice as they should be.” “Oh, darn them.” “We want them to act the way we want them to, so now we’re going to have our own space for the "Folks.” The word “queer” was invented for dialogue like this. “The College has paid for the houses of many frats…” Really, which ones? No frat was built by the college with College money. Of course students pay rent in the houses. The College uses College money to build houses for the women and not the men, the men’s houses were built with private money…all of them. Now the College is going to pay to build an affinity house for the LGBT’s so that the College will feel more inclusive to them as they segregate themselves at the expense of the rest of the student body. And that makes sense to you? Only in a fevered mind. “The College should build one because of the fact that it is in the college’s best interest to optimize the quality of student and member of society it produces.” “Improving inclusivity improves the overall quality of student produced, because it allows the college to draw from a larger range of people.” “By having a good LGBT support system at a systemic level, the College enables itself to draw more from the LGBT community.”

Has anyone read anything more full of BS than that paragraph lately? I would hate to have to grade this student's exams. Now the College is going to pay for an LGBT house so it can "produce" more LGBT students. Is that the goal? Is the goal more women? That's why the College is paying for sororities to be built? There is something intrinsically desirable about having more LGBT students and segregating them in their own houses built with College money is the best way to do that? Well, well, well. The College has to have an "LGBT structure in order to attract top tier LGBT students"? Is Dartmouth fielding an intercollegiate LGBT team that we aren't aware of? What the H? "That said."

First of all, men’s frats that are owned by the college have at least upkeep paid by the college. If this weren’t a case XH probably wouldn’t have a house right now. So yes, the college does pay for men’s spaces if the college owns the property. A lot of the frats own their own property, which gives them other advantages (like having access to their own rent money), which comes at the cost of the college not paying to maintain the building or rebuild it if it needs to be rebuilt. Oh wait, the college even rebuilt Phi Tau b/c they wanted to build Kemeny where Phi Tau used to be.

“At the expense of the student body.” The college pays for a lot of stuff that not everybody gets to use. It’s called managing different groups with different interests. And you seem to conflate “having a safe space” with “forcibly segregating an entire community from the rest of campus.” Having an LGBT affinity house won’t make every gay on campus suddenly refuse to interact with every non-gay. That’s not how it works.

I actually find it cute that you simultaneously hide behind the veil of anonymity and produce ad hominem attacks because you seem to lack any real point. You seem not to understand the point that creating a campus that is safer for everyone enables the college to draw stronger candidates from all demographics, thus improving the overall quality of the student body. It shouldn’t be that hard to understand.

“First of all”, no men’s frats, (are there women’s frats?) but I digress, no fraternity was built with college money. If you want to change the subject to owned and upkeep, feel free. Oh that’s right, secondly, you already did that, so you enjoy making points that are not in contention, that is a dishonest debating technique for which you will, thirdly, get no points. Frats getting their own rent money comes at zero expense to the College. I think that was a fourthly. “Oh wait the College rebuilt Phi Tau because they were forcing them out of their house to put up a College building (Kemeny), how thoughtful of them, seems like you are suggesting that it would have been far better had the College just thrown the brothers out, flattened the house and left them out in the street…is that fifthly? "At the expense of the student body.” You will not find “At the expense of the student body” anywhere in my post…sixthly. “The College pays for a lot of stuff that not everybody gets to use…” No doubt, but they didn’t pay for the building of the frats at Dartmouth College….“that not everybody gets to use.” “Safe space”? Like on Main Street in Hanover? In class? In the dorms? At the gym? Those aren’t “Safe Spaces”? Dartmouth gays can’t fund their own building? They have to have it done for them?

[You] "actually find it cute that [I] simultaneously hide behind the veil of anonymity and produce ad hominem attacks because [I] seem to lack any real point." So, you like to respond to "cute,""ad hominem attacks" and "no real point," because wasting your time on nothing is your cup of tea. You are responding because my points are all too "real" and you are unable to make any "real" counterpoint, so you figure that a good long volume of blather will do the trick. A few complete misquotes, a "bunch" of misdirection, answer a few things that you make up yourself and employ delusional attacks on straw men. It's all very clear, seventhly, at least. "You seem not to understand that making a campus that is safer for everyone enables the College to draw stronger candidates from all demographics, thus improving the overall quality of the student body." No, I don't seem to understand how the College spending College money to build an LGBT house makes it safer for LGBT people. LGBT people are usually complaining about their victim status, as if there's something wrong with them, or with someone else who isn't going along with their program. If they are all in one house, or as many as will live and meet in the house, won't all the bad people who are supposedly making your attendance at Dartmouth unsafe now, find it easier to identify the people from the house and make it even more unsafe? Not that I agree that Dartmouth College is unsafe for anyone. I don't. I think it's just a way to get what you want...talk about safety and..."Here's your house." Free of charge. Let's use the whipping boys of the frats over and over until we're blue in the face, because, hey, it works doesn't it? "I wanna house, now gimme it." It's so grown-up. Congratulations on getting the College to do what you like, and feel free to ask for more at any time, because they want "stronger candidates (who don't feel safe) from all demographics (young, old, stupid, smart, insane, diseased, violent, ex-cons, Muslim bombers(now that doesn't sound safe), well you get the idea, "thus improving the overall quality of the student body." Sheltered in Hanover, NH, with a crime rate higher than, Providence? No. Boston? No. Princeton? Not likely. Columbia? Not on it's best day. Penn? They have more muggings at Penn on a Tuesday afternoon than Dartmouth has had since 1769 when Eleazar mugged the Native Americans with rum. Yale? New Haven is a criminal town. Ithaca? Possibly, but where do most gays live now? Eighthly.....