University of Virginia Library

Donn Kessler

Commonwealth Morality

According to reports stemming
from Richmond, state legislators
have expressed concern over the
morality of youth at state colleges.
The Richmond Times Dispatch of
Tuesday, February 16 claimed that
state Senator Herbert Bateman (D -
Newport News) had placed a
resolution before the Senate Rules
committee to establish stringent
co-educational visitation hours at
state colleges that were in "keeping
with the moral tone of Virginia."

Mr. Bateman suggested that the
visitation of rooms of people
"under 21 not be allowed without
the prior consent of a student's
parents." Indeed, Attorney General
Andrew Miller was said to have
stated that college administrators
could be prosecuted under state
statutes for contributing to the
delinquency of a minor and for
operating a bawdy house if
visitation hours were not made and
enforced.

Immoral Conduct

One cannot agree more with
Senator Bateman's resolution.
Obviously parents and alumni have
been outraged by the 'immoral'
conduct of college youth within
our state. Furthermore, the wise
salons in Richmond must know
what goes on behind those closed
dormitory doors. They were young
once too and can speak from
personal experience. Only one part
of the resolution seems to be
bothersome. That is, how is the law
to be enforced? One cannot pass
resolutions without having a way to
enforce them.

There seem to be four possible
means to enforce the goal of
stringent visitation hours. The first
three of these, however, are
impractical and would not lead to
strict enforcement of visitation
hours. Only the last would convince
students that the acts going on
behind closed doors will no longer
be tolerated..

The first way of enforcing new
strict parietal hours would be to
allow students to enforce thy rules,
set up by the University's
administration. Although one
expects students to follow most
rules, this method seems rather
idealistic. At present there are
stringent laws concerning the use of
marijuana, liquor, and cigarettes
and yet students have been
disregarding these state and federal
laws for years. Indeed, one cannot
hope to have students enforce new
parietal hours placed upon them by
the state and administration.

The second means to enforce
the new rules would be to allow
dormitory counselors to make sure
that each girl has a pass when she
enters a boy's dormitory room. The
ridiculousness of this idea is
pointed out when one tries to
imagine a counselor knocking on a
dormitory door, entering, seeing
some immoral act in the process
and saying. "Excuse me, miss, are
you over 21? No. Well, do you have
your parents' written permission to
be here?"

The third proposal would be to
station guards at each entrance to
every dormitory at the University
to check the passes of students' as
they enter a dormitory that houses
members of the opposite sex. While
this might work at the Observatory
Hill dorms where there are few
entrances, the McCormick Road
Dormitories have too many
entrances to allow a small number
of guards to efficiently stop all
students.

Enforcement

The only way left for
enforcement of strict parietal
hours, and the only practical
means, would be to set up a
University Vice Squad between the
Office of Student Affairs, and the
Department of Security. This vice
squad would have only a minimum
number of assignments as one
dormitory raid would insure that
students would be more careful
next time. One can picture D. Alan
Williams. Ray Houchens, and Wade
Bromwell, accompanied by several
security guards surrounding let's
say Humphreys Dormitory, at 3
a.m. on the Saturday of Easters.
Mr. Williams with a loud speaker, would begin the raid.

"All right, Humphreys. The place
is surrounded. No one try to
escape. This is The University Vice
Squad and we're checking for
violation of parietal hours and
operation of a bawdy house. Stay
in your rooms while we come check
all written permission slips.

The security guards would then
swarm over the halls and arrest any
girl who was under 21 and did not
have a written permission slip from
her parents to allow her to visit a
boy's room.

One would imagine that only
one raid of this type would be
necessary as students from that
time on would be scared stiff to
enter a room of a member of the
opposite sex without a written
permission from her parents. By the
means then, the moral standards of
these students of the residents of
Virginia would be protected and
upheld within our free society.