When Dr. Russell H. Fazio, a psychology professor at The Ohio State University, examined interracial relationships between Black and White dormitory roommates a while back, he found that the relationships were more likely to dissolve if the White student had a “negative racial attitude.”
“What we found is that it was those students in particular for whom the relationship was problematic, and it was in those cases that the dyad would be most likely to split up,” Fazio said. “That is, one of the two people move out of the room.”
More specifically, the study — published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology — found that whereas only 5 of the 57 same-race White pairs in the study ‘‘broke up’’ before the end of the semester, 16 of the 58 interracial pairs did so.
Two students in an interracial dorm-room pairing at the University of Hartford became the latest casualty in dramatic form after the White student allegedly rubbed her bodily fluids on the Black student’s personal items — including used sanitary napkins on her backpack and putting her toothbrush “where the sun doesn’t shine” — then bragged about it on social media after the Black student — who had recently gotten sick — moved out.
The alleged perpetrator has since been arrested and charged, and hate crime charges are still in the mix. The episode quickly generated worldwide headlines that undermine the university’s efforts to portray its campus housing as a “supportive and fun environment.”
Given the racial strife that has permeated college campuses and campus housing recently — from racial slurs found on the message doors of Black cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School earlier this year to bananas being left at the dorm room of a Black woman student at American University the year before — Fazio’s research and other papers on residence life raise unsettled questions anew about what colleges and universities should do to ensure that students don’t end up in campus housing arrangements that threaten their safety and well-being.
