Briggs' Last Stand

March 20, 1962

WHEN THE RULES Committee of the Radcliffe Government Association recommends tomorrow that any student past her freshman year be allowed to sign out till any hour, it will run into a squall of opposition from a Briggs Hall contingent. The group contends that most "Cliffies cannot regulate their social lives without recourse to a set of stringent rules, and concludes that the College should retain its present restrictions. Their stand is short-sighted and does not deserve to be taken seriously be anyone concerned with Radcliffe's future as a leader in women's education.

There is little evidence that the average Radlcliffe girl is not prepared to take responsibility for her own behavior....Apparently, the opponents of change are more worried about Radcliffe's reputation than about the quality of its education. They would rather endorse hypocrisy than run the risk of raised eyebrows from those who always object to giving women the same freedom and responsibility as men. But they are wrong, for Radcliffe owes its current prominence to the courage of its educational experiments, past and present. Far from succumbing to social standards, Radcliffe has traditionally helped to remold them along progressive lines. Those who would claim timidity as a virtue are hardly doing a service to the College.

Contrary to the claims of the Briggs Hall residents, no one is advocating wild irresponsibility. The minority who indulge in behavior unacceptable to either their parents or the College are hardly going to be prevented from it by the present rules or by the proposed one. The cowardly few should not deprive more mature students of the chance to educate themselves. It is about time that Radcliffe did away with the last vestiges of boarding-school morality and proved itself to be, socially as well as intellectually, a woman's Harvard.

Not only did men and women live in separate housing accommodations in 1962, but each sex also had to live under vastly unequal rules. Unlike men-- who could be out at any hour--women were required back in their dorms by 1:00 a.m. When the Radcliffe Governing Association suggested that the curfew be abolished, it received an unfavorable response from a group of holdouts in Briggs Hall.