Cliffies Warned of Arrest Inder 'Fornication' Laws

The presidents of the Radcliffe Houses warned Cliffies this week that women spending the night in a man's apartment can be prosecuted under a state "fornication" law if either party is under 21.

The House presidents said that during the past year several students have been arrested under the law by Boston and Cambridge police. Head residents Radcliffe Government Association officials declined to say whether any Harvard of Radcliffe students were involved.

The warnings were appended to routine explanations of sign-out rules at the Fall introductory meetings in all Radcliffe dormitories. The decision to issue the warnings--one president called them "long arm of the Dean" speeches-- reached last week at an informal meeting of House presidents after considerations with the deans.

The House presidents also announced that the state legislature voted this summer that all college dormitories must observe a "lodging" statute which determines standards of behavior in hotels, Hotels, and inns. "No one knows how this is to be enforced," one president told her house, "so we're asking girls to use parietals intelligently. Radcliffe doesn't want to be the test case."

The "fornication" statute is rarely enforced, the Cliffies were told. "Police checking something as trivial as neighbor complaints of noisy parties in residents' apartments sometimes stumble over couples living together," a head resident said. "Nearly all arrests under the law are 'accidental.'"

The arrests and the new "lodging" statute brought the matter to Radcliffe's attention. "There's been no scandal," one president told an off-campus House. "The college only wants to remind you to be discreet and careful. Radcliffe asumes that its students are responsible our permissive rules prove that. But girls sometimes forget there exist statutes determined by people less liberal than the college administration." The head resident in, one of the co-operative Houses last night speculated at a Cliffie arrested under the "fornication" statute could expect legal aid from the college but would find Radcliffe "anxious to hush up any publicity. Even if the girl were cleared of the charge, the Administrative Board would probably feel obligated to punish, perhaps suspend, her."