Resident assistants have big shoes to fill. They’re the folks who are required to climb out of bed to take care of a sick resident at 4 a.m. They’re expected to help other residents cope with everything from mental health issues to building maintenance problems. The nature of their job requires them to be open and available to the students living a residence hall.

Recently, UW-Eau Claire made national news after an RA, senior Lance Steiger, received a letter from the university’s housing office stating he would face disciplinary action from the university if he continued to hold Bible studies in his room or in his residence hall.

The policy has garnered attention from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which said the policy is unlawful and violates RAs’ rights.

Currently, the debate is centered around the rights of RAs. However, the group the university must be most concerned about is residents.

With that in mind, the university is right to require RAs not to hold meetings of a religious or political nature in their rooms. A resident may not feel as comfortable going to an RA whose door is closed because he or she is meeting with a Bible study group. The time it takes for a Bible study group to clear out of the room may be enough to make an already fragile resident even more uncomfortable.

However, this standard of time doesn’t seem to apply to RAs practicing Bible studies in other areas of their halls. For this reason, RAs should be allowed to hold and participate in Bible studies in other areas of residence halls.

In general, the university needs to have greater oversight on how residents feel about their RAs. Residents don’t get to choose who their RA is, and the RA may express beliefs or act in ways that make residents uncomfortable. RAs who make residents feel uncomfortable or in some way don’t prioritize residents’ needs should be disciplined.

As Eau Claire and the UW System sort through this issue, the final deicsion must be applied systemwide.