Summary: George Washington Law converted a bathroom to be a multi-use bathroom that includes a stall and three urinals but is intended for one person to use at a time.
George Washington University has taken the proactive route to create several gender neutral restrooms around campus before being required to by any laws. However, one bathroom has become the source of controversy.
The bathroom in question was converted from a men’s restroom to all-gender one in December. The only change was adding two locks, one of which is handicap-accessible. The school added the locks with the intention that one person could use the restroom consisting of one stall and three urinals in privacy.
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A law professor is fighting back against the suggestion for people to lock the door while using the restroom. Professor John Banzhaf asks students not be “irrational prudes” that lock the door. Banzhaf crafted the “potty parity” litigation that added more women’s restrooms to public places. He complains that the school never made an official announcement in the regular email news updates or in the newspaper.
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The school’s spokesperson Liz Field explained the restroom “is intended to serve as a one person restroom despite the urinals contained therein” and was converted for those that wish to relive themselves alone, “We expect individuals to go in and lock the door behind them. It is not intended for multiple use and for the last two-plus months all individuals have used it as it is intended.”
Read Transgender Girl in Maine Seeks Supreme Court’s Approval to Use School’s Girls Room.
Banzhaf was bothered by the sign the school posted on the door of the restroom so he added his own. He is all for adding more multi-use, all-gender bathrooms since people lack shyness now anyways. His note reads, “While any person who is so shy – in this day and age when coed restrooms and showers are common in many dorms, and even kids think nothing of texting nude pictures of themselves – that they cannot stand to share a restroom with somebody not of their own gender, is free to lock the door, it is neither required nor desirable.”
Source: http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/26531/
Photo: wnd.com