There it was, in plain English, on page 38 of the 2009-2010 edition of "Habitats," the Office of Residential Life and Learning's (ResLife) student handbook.
"You may not engage in sexual activity while your roommate is present in the room," the newly revised guest policy read. "Any sexual activity within your assigned room should not ever deprive your roommate(s) of privacy, study, or sleep time."
Within days of the Daily's publication of a story about the policy on Sept. 24, 2009, the national media caught wind and a debate over universities' roles in the sex lives of their students — and the priorities of news outlets — began. "Sexiling" had entered the lexicon.
CNN, Time Magazine, the Boston Globe, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Times and USA Today covered the story in various forms. Many articles were laced with irony and self-referential complaints about how sex sells, but the coverage hit the zeitgeist all the same. The New Yorker half-joked that "tittering professional journalists seem much more interested in this latest development than the student body."
And then the attention stopped, as these things do. But what about the policy?
The controversy didn't generate much resulting action, and little has been revealed in the subsequent two and a half years about whether it was effective or, given the less-than-positive press coverage, worthwhile.
Tufts Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler told the Boston Herald at the time that approximately 12 students had "expressed concerns that they were experiencing uncomfortable situations" in relation to their roommates' sexual activity. As such, ResLife felt a need to respond, according to Carrie Ales-Rich, ResLife's assistant director for community and judicial affairs.
"We revamped our guest policy to address the concerns that were brought to our attention," Ales-Rich told the Daily in an email last week.
Despite the characterization by outlets like U.S. News and World Report, which described the policy as a "bold step toward regulating sexual activity in dorm rooms," Ales-Rich says the intent was never for the administration to dictate student behavior.
"[T]his was incorporated [into the guest policy] so that our residents could feel empowered to have conversations with their roommate if this did become an issue," she said. "We also wanted to make sure that residents understood that at no time could their behavior make their roommate feel uncomfortable."
The question of how exactly the policy would be implemented or enforced seems to have never been formally or publically answered. Speaking about the subject to the Daily in 2009, Ales-Rich expressed reluctance on behalf of ResLife to become involved in handling complaints related to policy violations.
"We don't want to let a conflict get to a point where someone from ResLife has to intervene and have that conversation," she said.
According to a senior who was a resident advisor at the time of the policy's inception — and requested anonymity due to a rule prohibiting RAs from speaking to the Daily about their duties — student complaints about violations of the policy would be met with a warning. If a second infraction occurred, ResLife's central staff would become involved. No specific protocol for punishments or further infractions was outlined for RAs, she said.
Though residents never informed her of any breaches, she did not consider the matter to be particularly pressing or serious, she said.
"In our duty team we kind of passed it off as a joke, but it never became an issue," she said. "If it had been, I'm not sure what ResLife would have done."
Ales-Rich said last week that, to her knowledge, ResLife has not yet had to address a specific case of this type with residents, and no current and former RAs spoken to for this article have faced the issue either.
But is the lack of reported incidents due to the successful implementation of the policy, or an indication that the policy may not have been necessary to begin with?
When informed of the policy's 2011-2012 language, which reveals slight but not meaningful change since 2009, senior Annie Dreyer, who recalls the controversy, took issue.
"‘It is not acceptable' does not sound like a conversation starter to me," she said. "That sounds like a black-and-white rule set up by the administration to regulate students' roommate relations … If we're supposed to be mature enough to go away to college and live on our own, shouldn't we be able to set our own rules with our roommates?"
A senior who, because she was evaluating decisions of school administrators, requested anonymity said that after initially viewing the policy as an unnecessary codification, she sees value in preventing so-called "sexiling."
"At the time … [I thought] ‘Why do we have to articulate what should be common sense, and what roommates should discuss themselves anyway?" she said. "But since then I've realized that this actually was and is an issue for some students."
Dreyer and junior Jeremy Zelinger both found the news coverage to be of more concern than the impetus behind the policy itself.
"I remember at the time being pretty embarrassed that this stupid rule was what Tufts was getting media attention for," Dreyer said.
"I thought it was a bad decision by the administration because it brought a lot of negative attention to the school," Zelinger added. "Roommates should be able to have the conversation without the administration embarrassing the school."
Asked about the media scrutiny and whether criticism of the university's role in the sexual activity of students was valid, Ales-Rich held firm.
"Again, we felt that having this language in place would empower our students to be able to have the kinds of conversations necessary to ensure a successful roommate relationship," she said.
