HCUA Rejects Parietal Report As Too Feeble

The Harvard Council on Undergraduate Affairs last night refused to accept a parietal hours committee report recommending the extension of Friday night parietals to midnight before home football games.

The HCUA remanded the report to the committee, instructing it to consider the "broader philosophical principles" underlying parietals.

H. Thomas Seymour '64, chairman of the HCUA and head of the parietals committee, had told the Council that "there is a fair likelihood that 12 o'clock parietals on Friday nights before football games could be gained."

The attack on the parietals resolution centered on its failure to consider the present bases of the entire parietal hour structure. Most vociferous of the detractors, Joseph M. Russin '64 called the report "mealy-mouthed" and "pap," claiming that it simply side-stepped the major philosophical issue of whether parietals are simply social administrative rules or are intended to implement a specific moral code. He added that the report's "trivial" requests would hurt chances of future revisions, and that the report probably was unrepresentative of student opinion.

Committee members, led by Seymour, insisted that the HCUA's purpose should be to get concrete achievements for the student body, and that the present recommendations offered the only opportunity for gaining the Masters' approval.

Seymour contended that "the Masters are human and occasionaly act irrationally." He added that unreasonable requests by the HCUA now would simply jeopardize the chances of getting anything at all.