Bathroom Brouhaha

One of the more durable educational reforms won by the college generation of the 1960s was the coeducational dormitory--and that inevitable corollary, unisex bathrooms. At the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, for instance, some two-thirds of the 11,000 students in university housing share toilet facilities with members of the opposite sex. Now, however, the Old Morality seems to be making a comeback. Citing complaints from parents, state plumbing codes that seem to require separate facilities and changing attitudes among undergraduates, the university has announced that the showers will be resegregated. "With new student populations come new moralities," says Director of Residential Life Marjorie Lenn. Many students are not so sure. A coalition of male and female dorm residents plans to fight the proposed change, anc the student senate has called for a debate on the matter. Complains Student Senator Freeman Woodson, class of '82: "I think the university is trying to kick us back to the Dark Ages." How far back? "To the year 1950," he says with a shudder.

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