When I was an editor of The Red & Black at the University of Georgia in 1972, a parent named Savage discovered that his daughter’s dorm was co-ed. He had not heard, when he sent his daughter to UGa, that she would be living in a co-ed building. His anger turned to activism as he lobbied the legislature and the Board of Regents to end the practice of putting “budding communes,” as he called them, on college campuses funded by the taxpayers.

Imagine what Mr. Savage would think if he sent his daughter to Stanford. Here’s how one female student’s mother reacted when she called and a male answered the phone:

“She’s sharing a room with one other girl and two boys,” I said.

“You mean a suite.”

“No,” I said. “I mean a bedroom.”

My mother-in-law couldn’t believe it.

“But wait,” I said. “It gets worse. She didn’t ask for this room arrangement. She missed the room meeting because she had a friend visiting from the East Coast. She appointed a proxy, and said she wanted a room with no smoking and no sex in the room, but she didn’t ask for a single-sex room.”

“Should she?” asked my mother-in-law.

“Well, apparently. But she says she didn’t think it was necessary.”

“So she asked to get out, right?”

“Wrong. Her dorm had a seven-hour room meeting, and she doesn’t want to upset everyone’s consensus arrangements. Plus, she says it’s no big deal.”

“So where does she get dressed?”

“That’s the same question I asked,” I said. “She says she gets dressed in the bathroom.”

The media, academics and liberals sneered at Mr. Savage’s use of the term “budding communes.” But he was more right than they were.