The Harvard Sex Scandal That Shook the Nation

In 1964 the primary goal of College administrators was maintaining "an open door and one foot on the floor" policy for students entertaining guests of the opposite sex in their rooms.

Parietal infractions of the previous spring had convinced college deans that it might be necessary to restrict parietal privileges for students at both Harvard and at Radcliffe. But as concern over proposed reduction in parietal privileges claimed the attention of both students and officials, the ensuing conflict escalated into a sex scandal that reached the front pages of salubrious national tabloids like Boston's own Record American.

Essentially the conflict was one of whose right it was to determine the morality of college students--the College's or the students' themselves. And in the process of decrying the proposed tightening of existing parietal rules, the class of 1964 entered the fringe of what would become the 1960s sexual revolution.

Students in 1964 were concerned with lengthening the number of hours they were allowed to spend with members of the opposite sex in the privacy of their own rooms, but few could appreciate the fact that only a decade earlier men and women were not allowed to enter dormitories of the opposite sex at all.

Parietal rules, which, as the the Radcliffe Redbook of rules described them, were "the Harvard-Radcliffe term used for those hours during which students may entertain students of the opposite sex in their rooms" took effect in 1952.

The main purpose of the rules was to restrict the presence to women in Harvard Houses to specified times. Radcliffe students could stay in the Harvard houses from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. In 1952 the hours were extended until 11 p.m. in the evening on Saturdays and finally, in 1956, women were allowed in the Houses, at the Masters' discretion, until midnight on the weekends. At Radcliffe, 1962 saw the extension of parietal hours to 25 per week, at the discretion of the dormitory.

Parietal rules applied to student groups as well as dormitories. In mixed organizations such as the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO), there were special hours during which women were allowed to work in the group offices. The Student Activities Center was open from only 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. for women, and even organizations like WHRB, The Crimson and the Hasty Pudding Club had parietal hours.

Officially, the purpose of the parietals was moral. As Dean Watson said at the time, "It is not appropriate for a Harvard student to entertain a girl in his own room." Other attitudes that concerned the parietal rules were also morally grounded. David E. Owen, Master of Winthrop House, told The Crimson that "people are concerned about the unusual situation in which unmarried men are entertaining young women in what amounts to their bedrooms. This is not an accepted procedure in the United States or anywhere in the Western world."

College officials said the rules were also intended to fulfill an academic function because they believed restricting the times during which women could enter the Houses would help maintain peaceful and undistracting study hours.

The 1963 conflict originated at the beginning of the class of 1964's senior year, when Watson announced that he was planning to investigate the possibility of curtailing parietal privileges at Harvard. According to Watson, the College wished to avoid sexual scandals, and the Dean hinted that there had been several bad situations the year before which could have been embarrassing for Harvard.

He told The Crimson, "We found girls staying in dormitory rooms after hours, boys from other Houses writing illegibly in the sign-in books, girls being signed out by someone other than her host and many other infractions. Sometimes girls are signed out at midnight on Saturday and they're still in there."

Watson's determined language indicates the scale to which the College was dedicated to ending the parietal problem. Dean John E. Monro, told reporters he was anxious and upset about the parietal rule infractions.

A Crimson article stated, "Monro said sexual intercourse between unmarried individuals was an abuse the College could not tolerate."

To the administrators, sex between Harvard and Radcliffe students seemed to be in the same league as lying, cheating and stealing.

At the time, Watson said, "We have to watch the mores of our students. I do not want to see Harvard play a leading role in relaxing the moral code of college youth. The College must follow the customs of the time and the community. We cannot have rules more liberal than a standard generally accepted by the American public."

The College attacked the sexuality of youth as psychiatrically and morally harmful. Officials cried that "trouble has arisen because what was once considered a pleasant privilege has now, for a growing number of students, come to be considered a license to use the College rooms for wild parties or for sexual intercourse," and they said that sexual intercourse, before college graduation, could be mentally harmful.

Dean Monro, enlisted the aid of University Health Services (UHS) psychiatrists in the fight for strict parietal rules. Carl A. L. Binger '40, Consultant in Psychiatry at the Harvard Health Service, conducted a study of Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates that supposedly revealed that students were having sexual relationships out of lustful whims and desires.

Binger and the Deans said they wanted to correct this attitude, and in a letter to The Crimson in the fall of 1963, Binger wrote, "what is important and valuable in a sexual relationship is not merely the excitement and pleasure but also its uniqueness and meaningfulness. This will not be achieved when it is indulged in as a show of athletic prowess in the male or as reassurance for his own faltering masculinity; nor in the female as a conventional compliance with what others are doing or again to prove her own attractiveness and let her little world know she has her man."

Both doctors and administrators stressed that stricter rules would benefit students, because sex before college graduation was thought to be harmful to the young adult's psyche.

But Monro said that the College was looking out for its own welfare as well. The Deans were anxious to avoid scandals similar to those the conflict would eventually produce.

Also, the Deans compared their role to that of hotel proprietors. Monro argued that the Houses were not individual apartments that allowed students to carry on as they wished. He said that as educational establishments the Houses could dictate moral behavior. "We are legitimately interested in their use," Monro said.

The deans argued that College officials, like hotel managers, helped uphold morality by preventing unmarried couples from sleeping in the same room.

But Radcliffe administrators were more tolerant about student sexuality. As Radcliffe President Mary Bunting told The Crimson, "of course, I don't go through the Houses on Saturday night, and I haven't been making a special point of talking to the girls on the subject, but Radcliffe College should not ask what everybody is doing every minute."

Bunting indicated that the new policy to tighten restrictions might be linked with current events. As an article stated, "she stressed, however, that much of the Harvard Dean's concern could have been touched off by the country-wide publicity that the problems of premairital sex have received in the past three years."

But reports of responses to the potential tightening of rules shows that students' attitudes toward sex and romance were incompatible with those of administrators.

Most students said they felt that it was absolutely none of the College's business what went on behind the bedroom doors. Monro told reporters that, "When we talked to the students we found a prevailing attitude that what went on in the rooms during social hours was none of the College's business."

One student told The Crimson, "some College officials think the current undergraduate attitude is "what the hell; the College authorities know we don't have girls in our rooms just to hold hands and do intellectual exercises, so they must approve of what we are doing."

Many students evaded the rules as well as they could--hiding women in the bathroom when tutors checked the rooms after the end of parietal hours for the day--and some organized protests against the proposed restrictions.

The Dunster House Committee was among the first to protest vehemently against the considered changes in rules. Along with Thomas Seymour '64, president of the Harvard Council of Undergraduate Affairs (HCUA), the House Committee proposed a study of sexual practices at Harvard and organized a group to conduct the study and consider working to abolish parietals altogether. John Purvis '64 of the Dunster House Committee said then that, "it would be unfortunate if the privilege of entertaining a date in a natural setting were taken away because of vague suspicions."

Though Purvis' attitude reflects only dismay at the tightening of rules, other students were more open about what was going on in bedrooms at the time. One student wrote a letter to the Crimson, saying "Well, it is true that men and women students like to be together and enjoy each other's company in a quiet and private place; it is also true that most Harvard and Radcliffe students, when they leave their colleges are no longer virgins; and it is finally true that many of the students have their first complete sexual experiences during Harvard's parietal hours."

News of the controversy and the apparent ineffectiveness of parietal rules spread onto the pages of national tabloids like the Record American. Wire services like the Associated Press and United Press International carried the stories, and papers similar to the National Enquirer sported headlines about the supposed salubrious and origiastic fests at the College, setting off a chain of rumors no doubt worse than the potentially scandalous situations College Deans had feared the year before.

Though Deans Watson and Monro stated vehemently that the tabloid scandal would in no way affect the considered changes in parietal rules, the conflict between students and officials continued to be an item of interest for the rest of the year.

By the time the class of 1964 graduated, parietal rules were still intact. But the year of scandal and controversy was not without some lasting effects. Parietal rules would continue, but not for long, and by 1970 students at Harvard and Radcliffe would have fought for and achieved complete rights to determine morality within their own rooms.