The Spectator received a letter to the editor in response to our recent article, Trans Students Struggle to Secure Safe Housing. In this letter, James Willette, associate vice provost and dean of students, and Hilary Lichterman, director of housing and residence life (HRL), addressed how they felt the original article was unfair in reporting this issue.
“The reporting in the Spectator is unfortunate because it suggests that the HRL team neither cares about our trans and gender non-conforming students nor considered their experiences when developing the housing selection process,” the letter stated.
What was most important to them to point out was that the issue the students in the article faced “was due to user error.” They felt that the original reporting did not do an adequate job of showing that HRL is supportive of students who are trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming.
While we always welcome and appreciate responses and different perspectives on our reporting, we do feel that the issues brought forward by this letter insinuated that we had not discussed points that were addressed in the original article.
To the first point, it was clearly stated in the article by Assistant Director of Housing Operations and HRL Tyler Murphy that this issue could have been due to missing the deadline to create housing groups. Murphy also points out that this does not take away from the stress that the students in the article went through, but it does provide an explanation for their issues.
While user error is likely a contributing factor to the quoted students’ experiences, the response letter did not acknowledge the perception of trans students like Maya Stefanovic, who feels that there is still room for growth in terms of supporting students.
“I think for a school that really prides itself on being inclusive, they need to work harder on helping out their trans student body, because they’re not really doing it well right now,” Stefanovic said.
Housing selection can be stressful, and it is not surprising that busy students may miss a deadline. In the reporter’s interview with Murphy and Associate Director of Housing Tim Albert, they both were already discussing this as a potential area of improvement for next year. We find the response letter to rely heavily on blaming students without recognition of ways in which HRL might be able to make the process easier or more accessible, as was a notion brought forth by members of HRL and quoted in our original reporting.
On the note of The Spectator not showing that HRL supports students, we believe this to be an unfounded accusation. The students themselves may feel frustrated by their experiences with the housing selection process and HRL, but the reporter never suggested that HRL may be unsupportive of trans individuals. We feel that those interviewed for Spectator articles should be able to share whatever they feel. Reporters and editors do not edit quotes.
Students sharing frustrations with a process does not mean that The Spectator is saying that the process is flawed. The article also shares how Murphy and Albert were willing to be supportive of students who were dissatisfied with the results of housing selection.
While HRL’s goal to help trans students navigate their living situations was an area reported on in the original article, the response letter seems to favor the idea that student error is the sole factor causing issues in the process, with no discussion of how HRL could grow to better aid trans students in understanding the housing process or offering different options for housing.
The Spectator hopes to provide everyone on campus a place where they can share their concerns and frustrations. We also hope to provide a platform to every side of an issue, which we felt was done adequately in this article. There were students who had issues with the housing process who felt strongly enough about it to want to speak to us. Providing them a place to talk is not equal to The Spectator condemning HRL.
We welcome the critique of our articles, especially in cases where individuals do not feel that different perspectives were heard. In this instance, however, we feel that our original reporting was above adequate in allowing HRL a platform to speak on the issue, and that the response letter has disregarded this fact and stepped away from accountability in a manner that was not reflected in our original reporting.
