University of Virginia Library

First-Year Immorality?

Thumbs down for the first-year class came
last week in a meeting between Kevin Mannix.
President of the Student Council, and
President Shannon and D. Alan Williams,
Vice-President for Student Affairs. First-year
students will still be unable to set their own
parietal hours.

Last spring the Student Council
unanimously endorsed the First-year
Council's request for twenty-four hour
parietal hours for the second semester and for
the power to set its own parietal rules, subject
only to Student Council approval.
Vice-President Williams, the spokesman or the
Administration on this matter, began
discussions with Beat Steiner, then President
of the First-year Council. Nothing was done
last year.

Student Council again went to bat for the
First-year Council this fall. Larry Sabato,
President of the First-year Council, proposed
"That each corridor on each floor in the
McCormick Road Dorms and each suite in the
Alderman First-year Dorms shall set their own
parietals by majority vote of the suite or
corridor, with the suite or corridor informing
the First-year Judiciary Council, which will
enforce the regulations." This was passed
unanimously by the First-year Council and
was sent to a referendum vote of the
First-year Class where it passed 1423 to 59 or
about 25:1. The Student Council then voted
to take the proposal to the Board.

The Board referred the matter back to the
Administration after Vice-President Williams
failed to support the proposal. He could see
no reason for the change: "The visitation
program and policy throughout the University
has worked to the mutual advantage of the
students and the University. Although the
First-year Council does not have the authority
to set its own visitation regulations, the
present regulations appear to me to have
worked to provide a proper balance in regards
to the social, academic, and personal privacy
demands of individual students. Therefore, I
do not believe we should change the existing
policy at the present time."

The key note in the rejection is the
emphasis on "proper." We flatly disagree with
Vice-President Williams that a "proper"
balance now exists.

We frankly believe that the Administration
refuses to move on this issue because of fear
that their "permissiveness" would fan the
fires of those delegates in Richmond who are
determined to inject their moral tenets into
the daily life of the students on the Grounds.
We also suspect that personal morality of
some Administrators is coming into play.
They are afraid, just as they were during the
debates for limited parietals last year, that the
dormitories will become hotels for grovelling
boys and girls who will make an academic
atmosphere impossible to maintain. As
evidenced by visitation hours thus far, their
fears are unfounded. We have not noticed too
many students satiated from sex, or that
uncommonly low grades are prevalent among
first-year students, rather the reverse for both.

Phil Chabot, a College representative on
Student Council, has stated that the issue
involved is that these parietals would insure
equal treatment for all students. That is
peripheral. The heart of the debate is that,
beset with overblown consequences of the
parietals, some individuals seem determined
to force their moral code on others. The
Administration has yet to show why these
parietals would injure "the social, academic
and personal privacy demands of the
individual student." The limited hours have
improved conditions within the dormitories
for the first-year student. We believe that
first-year self-determination in this matter will
continue to improve those conditions.