Like many new students arriving at the University of Iowa for the first time, I discovered with despair there are no paper towels in my building’s bathrooms. Not on the basement floor, not on the first floor, not by the student lounge, not in the library bathrooms. I checked.

Often, this is merely an inconvenience. I run my hands under the sink and through the gentle breeze of the hand dryer for a few seconds before walking out dripping surely clean bathroom liquid into the hallways. But when I’m not quite able to balance my book underlining and lunch eating and drip some soup on my jacket before a reception with Iowa Supreme Court justices — just a hypothetical — our lack of paper towels mandates creative problem-solving.

Thus, imagine my shock to discover that there are paper towels at the UI! While the rest of us peons muddle through an empty, paper towel-less wasteland, the Adler Journalism Building’s third floor men’s bathroom offers clean and effective paper towels!

You can read better op-eds with more logical arguments for why we need paper towels in our bathrooms from this very paper. But of course, why would logic convince where equality fails to compel our administrators? Instead, some students and staff retain the benefit of paper towels while others merely pay the price.

Who else at Iowa is granted the unique privilege of paper towels?

– Daniel Sunne, UI College of Law