In his Forum piece Sept. 28 (Best option to protect students’ rights,), Adam Kinsinger asserted that the Office of Planning, the (Advisory Neighborhood Commission) and some members of the City Council want to alter the D.C. Human Rights Act, and make it legal to discriminate against students. Adam’s boss, Assistant Vice President for Government Relations Bernard Demczuk, knows that is not true.

GW currently makes it easier or cheaper to live one place rather than another – for example, as part of the Mount Vernon programs or at Columbia Plaza. In their current campus plan proposals, GW commits to further incentive programs for students who are in University housing to stay in it and for those who are not in University housing to rent outside the Foggy Bottom area. They also are implementing – as their own proposal – mandatory residence hall living for freshmen and sophomores over the next two years.

But when the Office of Planning and the community asked GW to measure their housing commitment under the new campus plan by how successful they are in such incentive programs, they balked and claimed that it would violate the Human Rights Act. Only then did the Office of Planning and Councilmember Phil Mendelson suggest that, if there really was such a concern under the Act, it could be clarified.

The point of the clarification would be to allow incentives. If GW makes it cheaper or easier to live outside Foggy Bottom, does that violate the rights of those who choose to take advantage of the incentives? The rights of those who decline? Whose, then? Let’s limit our arguments to issues where there is something to argue about.

-Michael ThomasFoggy Bottom Association president