Master Affirm Long-Standing Ban On Wearing shorts in Dining Halls

The Masters reaffirmed a long-standing but loosely enforced rule prohibiting the wearing of shorts in House dining halls at their monthly meeting Wednesday. It appeared that a crack-down on violations loomed, as students in shorts were barred from meals in at least one House yesterday. Other students in shorts met no opposition, however.

Michal J. M. Galazka '63-3, Quincy House representative on the Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs, said that five to ten members of the House had been turned back from the dining hall at lunch. He said that he did not plan to bring the matter before the HCUA, since the Council held its last regular meeting of the term Monday.

The chairman of the HCUA's extracurricular affairs committee, Gary W. Burkhart '65, said he was opposed to the ban on shorts, but doubted that his committee could protest effectively this late in the year. "It's pretty hard to do anything after the Masters have made up their minds," Burkhart said.

The Masters said the ban applied to all shorts, including Bermudas. For the last two years, Bermuda shorts have been permitted in some Houses if worn with knee-length socks.

Hairy Legs Repulsive

"Sitting there eating with a great expanse of hairy legs is a rather repulsive thing," John H. Finley, Jr. '25, Master of Eliot House, declared. "Since you can't ask the head waitress to differentiate between shorts from J. Press and shorts from the YMCA," he explained, "J. Press is out, also."

Finley said that the rule against shorts went back to the beginning of the House system, although it "comes as a surprise to every new generation of undergraduates."

Elliott Perkins '23, Master of Lowell House, called the results of wearing shorts "aesthetically awful." He said that Harvard men should not wear them "unless the weather gets unbearably hot, and it never gets that hot until the day after Commencement."

Asked if he expected any difficulty in applying the regulation, Perkins said that "people around here are pretty cooperative." "They know the Faculty is wrong, but they allow them a certain latitude of error," he added.

Freshmen may still wear shorts in the Union, which is not covered by the regulation.