If you go to the first floor of the Bizzell Memorial Library, you will find a walkway exhibit that displays books selected by various members of the OU community. In that display, in addition to Bob Stoops selection of a children’s book, you will find President David Boren’s book selection.
Boren has selected for his inspirational book the classical philosophical treatise “On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill. The placard beside the book indicates that the book has significantly informed Boren’s ideas about the nature of interference in the private lives of others.
For those unfamiliar with the text, in “On Liberty,” Mill provides various arguments in defense of extensive personal liberty, and against the right of society to intrude upon that liberty. He argues that human beings are diverse and have their own needs met in different ways through different kinds of lives. Additionally, he points out that the fallibility of our own reasoning might lead us to conclude wrongly about the optimal way to live one’s life.
Out of these ideas, he ultimately deduces his famous harm principle. Under the harm principle, the only extent to which society is permitted to restrict the liberty of individuals is to prevent those individuals from harming others. No other reason, be it society’s ideas about the morally correct way to live or society’s ideas about what is the most correct lifestyle, is sufficient to intrude upon the decisions others wish to make.
I imagine this all sounds quite good to most readers, and I am certainly glad that Boren chooses to display this important book so that others might read and learn from it as he and countless others already have. What interests me however is the contradiction between Boren’s claims that the book informs his views on liberty and Boren’s actual behavior as university president. In particular, I am interested in his consistent refusal to entertain the idea of new housing options for student residents.
Last year, the student group Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Friends pressed the administration to include a completely voluntary opt-in housing option that would permit individuals to live on floors and suites with members of their opposite sex. They reasonably argued that sex-segregated floors do not fully meet the need of every student on campus.
In addition to their plea, a faculty-led teach-in was hosted in support of such a move, and the Undergraduate Student Congress unanimously passed a resolution calling on the university to implement these new housing options. Across the country, at least 54 universities have already added these kinds of housing options for their student residents, with Columbia University being the most recent.
Despite all of this, Boren and his administration continue to block any effort towards additional housing options. When asked publicly earlier this year why he will not allow more housing options, he said simply, “This is Oklahoma.”
That’s right, Boren claimed that this state was so backwards that it would become angry at a state university which allowed for more extensive housing options that (gasp) even allowed members of opposite sexes to be on the same floor, and even rooms!
Whatever one thinks of Boren’s assessment of the mentality of Okies, this kind of answer is exactly opposite of what a Mill follower should have said. Providing completely optional housing opportunities for adults to choose from does no harm to anyone else who does not want to take part. Thus, even if this is Oklahoma, society should not be permitted to tyrannize over the private lives of students who want different housing arrangements.
In “On Liberty,” Mill states that “There is no reason that all human existence should be constructed on some one or some small number of patterns.” But Boren’s stubbornness on campus housing options has done exactly that for student residents.
— Matt Bruenig, philosophy senior
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zeno 1 year, 5 months ago
Being a supporter of someone's views doesn't mean you're a purist.
Also, Mill refers to the government and its laws for the most part. The University is not the government. It receives funds from the government, but the University is an independent institution and is not making any laws. The dorms belong to the University, and students pay to use them. If someone doesn't like the way they go about things, they can a) go to school elsewhere, or b) get an apartment.
People also have the right to smoke--but the University can dictate where they are allowed to smoke because the University OWNS the buildings. If you want to attack Boren for being inconsistent, attack him on his political movements. This is silly.
bruenig 1 year, 5 months ago
zeno,
The university is not an independent institution, it is run by Regents that are selected by the state government, and all of its employees are state employees. It is a public institution, run by the government.
If someone does not like the dorms, it is inappropriate to ask them to go to school elsewhere because it is their university. The university belongs to residents of this state, and so to say that a person should go elsewhere is completely ridiculous (not to mention that their taxes support the institution). They could live off-campus and that would be a suitable solution, except that it is Regents rules that you must live on campus if you are a freshman (with some exceptions).
So the only way to attend your public university that you pay for is if you live in the dorms (because of regents rules), but when you are living in the dorms, you have to do so under a sex-segregated policy which does not meet the needs of of significant groups of people.