Post-Clementi, Rutgers Goes Co-ed

Five months after gay student Tyler Clementi ended his life, New Jersey's Rutgers University is launching a pilot program that will allow mixed-gender housing at the school.

Gay groups have been pushing for the change. "We live in a world where in order to be considered a human being you have to be male or female, and not everyone fits into that kind of binary," senior Aaron Lee told Newark's Star-Ledger. "It's important to have spaces where people don't necessarily have to worry."

The housing will be open to heterosexual students as well; students in the mixed-gender housing will not be asked their sexual orientation. The co-ed dorms will have shower curtains replaced by doors, and the bathrooms will have restricted access via key cards, so only those occupying the dorms can utilize them.

The launch of the co-ed dorms follows Clementi jumping off the George Washington Bridge after two students claimed they had broadcast a same-sex sexual encounter of his on the Internet.

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