Administrative Board Kills Council's Parietal Petitions

Parietal rules will be the same as ever.

The Administrative Board told the Student Council by letter yesterday that it had rejected recommendations of the Council, the House Committees, and the Housemasters to extend the hours at which women may be in House rooms.

In the letter, Dean Bender wrote that he and others on the Administrative Board felt the suggested parietal rules reforms were not in the best interests of the College.

"The College," Bender said, "has an inescapable responsibility to lay down regulations which will help to maintain the highest standards of personal conduct among its students or at least not encourage a departure from such standards."

He argued that except for Yale, no schools in the East Comparable to Harvard permitted women in rooms at night unchaperoned.

Morally Sound

Replying immediately to the adverse decision about its proposals, the Council last night said the Board's arguments "seem concerned primarily with morals and public relations. Both of these arguments are based on highly flexible and debatable standards. It seems to us some what incongruous that Harvard should invite public abuse by its defense of academic freedom and tremble at the charge of immorality in a handful of asocial students.

"For the 25 percent of Harvard students on scholarships, however, the decision...solves nothing...It is quite disappointing that the College Administration should reject a petition raised by all the elected representative student groups and seconded by the House Masters. But it is far more disturbing that no compromise or alternative solution was offered. The Board should have been willing at least to experiment with the proposals on a year basis as is the case at Yale."

Seek Another Solution

The proposal of the Council and House committees was that room permission be extended to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights and on other occasions according to the discretion of the Housemasters. The Masters approved this plan, though they added several refinements.

Bender's letter urged the Council to work toward other, better answers to the problem. In their reply, the members of

the Council said, "we could, of course, suggest such answers as fraternities or student unions which meet the social needs of other student bodies, but these are unsuited to Harvard. In the last analysis, we believe that our original proposals as amended by the Masters offer the only sane and workable solution.

"If the Administration sincerely believes that some other solution really exists, they should direct some body such as the Committee on Houses to propose an alternate answer. We would be happy to work with this or any other group toward any feasible compromise or alternate solution.