Masters, HUC Vie For Dress Ruling

Members of the Committee on Houses have agreed to liberalize the coat and tie regulation in College dining halls, but the Harvard Undergraduate Council, which proposed the change, is still not satisfied.

The House Masters, who form the Committee on Houses with some Harvard deans, informally agreed to change the long standing rule last week. They delayed formal action until their next meeting in order to give the HUC time to discuss the proposal.

The COH agreement would eliminate the coat and tie rule for all meals except dinner. The old rule will be replaced by a "well-defined expectation" according to Dean Glimp, spokesman for the Committee.

Glimp defined that "expectation," as "a coat and tie--or equivalent dress--for dinner and meals where ladies are apt to be present, and appropriate dress at all other times."

HUC Objects

Steven J. Kaplan '69, president of the HUC, said the Undergraduate Council had sent a letter to all House Masters asking that liberalization of the rule be left up to the individual House Committees.

"There is a fundamental question of autonomy here," Kaplan said. "Are the guys in each House going to be allowed to decide what they are going to wear or not?"

In response to Kaplan's complaint, Dean Glimp said that the interpretation of "appropriate dress" might be left to each House Committee. "Appropriate dress is a very flexible term," he added.

"The point of the old rule has been to have a certain standard of neatness," Glimp said. The liberalization of the rule was caused by new styles and ideas on dress which have changed that standard, he said.

Since the beginning of classes, the coat and tie rule has not been rigidly enforced in any of the Houses, though the Freshman Union has been customarily strict. Several of the upperclass Houses, notably Winthrop and Lowell, have been quietly experimenting with no dress requirements, creating confusion among students over the rule's status.

Last year, Yale University dropped all coat and tie requirements in the undergraduate colleges after students petitioned to end the rule, which college masters had found impossible to enforce.