Rather than using applications reviewed by student staff to decide residents in ethnic theme houses, the University will use a random lottery-based system to decide next year’s residents, according to an email sent to some student staff members in theme houses last week.

University spokesperson Luisa Rapport wrote in a statement to The Daily that the change to ethnic theme house preassignment “was made to eliminate any potential perception of bias that could have existed in the current process.” Rapport then clarified that the number of students selected to each house has not changed, and only students who had preassigned to a given house would be living there. 

Ethnic theme houses – Okada, Ujamaa, Casa Zapata and Muwekma-Tah-Ruk – have operated as residential centers for students to explore their cultural identity since the 1970s and 80s.

The Trump administration previously sent a sweeping letter ordering federally-funded institutions to cease all race-conscious practices, including in housing and campus life. The government later appeared to walk back some of its restrictions in an FAQ document.

Addressing the concerns of student staff and house residents — some of whom have voiced their dissatisfaction with the change over the social media app Fizz —   Rapport wrote, “We will be exploring other approaches to the preassign process for future years.” She also directed students to their resident directors as resources to find community outside of ethnic theme houses.

Assistant Vice Provost for Residential Education Cheryl Brown echoed Rapport’s efforts to promote community in spaces beyond the theme houses, as “we simply had more applicants than available spots.” Brown said she hoped “students who were not pre-assigned will continue to remain active in their respective communities, and we encourage them to apply again for the 2026-27 academic year.”

This notice comes after co-ops Synergy and Terra faced the threat of conversion to self-ops at the end of April when they received low preassignment numbers, as Columbae did last year. Both houses eventually regained partial co-op status for the coming academic year.

This story is developing and will be updated.