There are two issues that complicate the analysis: 1. If there is more than one student in the dorm room, then the issue of protecting someone from offense doesn't end at the door from the hallway. If the dorm room is a suite, with separate bedrooms connected to a common living/kitchen area, then does the line of protection end at the bedroom doors and not the door from the hall? Incompatibility among dorm-mates has been an issue ever since there have been dorms; though some issues don't involve the First Amendment (no list needed!), others do, and resolution in the form of reassignment found support among administrators with common sense who preferred the path of confrontation avoidance. It may be that students now are more willing to have someone make the world conform to their wishes than to find a nonconfrontational way in which to reside therein.
2. To some greater or lesser degree, institutions of higher learning are striving to be or become diverse. Diversity in whatever form surely brings diversity in culture, norms, standards, values, and thus, definitions of offensive. Guaranteed there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that someone can say, exhibit, wear, eat, or sing that won't find an offended bystander somewhere in a diverse dorm setting. That may be a reason there has been an increase in "tribalization" as a response to "globalization" in recent years, a point that is a bit off-topic but that I offer as a backdrop against which to scrutinize the inherent conflicts of diversity. Though it may make sense to use some "reasonable person" standard to determine what is offensive (or harrassment), the problem is that there is no way to find a "person" without finding that person's cultural, normative, and valuative characteristics. Some colleges get around this in a clever way: "To minimize costs and keep board fees as low as possible, the University of X has adopted the following rules which are intended to reduce the need for maintenance, painting, repairs, and other upkeep. Students are not permitted to affix anything to walls, because tape, push pins, nails, screws and other means of hanging damage the paint and walls. Students are not permitted to affix anything to windows, because tape, glue, or other means of affixation damage the glass...." [it goes on for a while.] Result: no one can hang or post anything. Bland decor and bland environment. On the other hand, if a purpose of higher education is to introduce students to the world outside academia, then abolish all rules and let them play at local and internation government, arbitration, and dispute resolution.... sometimes the best learning occurs under the pressure of stress and crisis.] Jim Maule Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law Villanova PA 19085 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://vls.law.vill.edu/prof/maule President, TaxJEM Inc (computer assisted tax law instruction) (www.taxjem.com) Publisher, JEMBook Publishing Co. (www.jembook.com) Owner/Developer, TaxCruncherPro (www.taxcruncherpro.com) Maule Family Archivist & Genealogist (www.maulefamily.com)
