History Takeover: Lock the women up

The sixties were an era of mass social change not only across the U.S. but at Grinnell. In the fall semester of 1967, women’s hours, a strict curfew for the women students who lived in the tightly monitored closed loggia of South Campus, were officially abolished following student opposition to the punitive measures. It was not until the subsequent fall semester when co-ed residence halls were established in a wave of co-education across the nation, and self-governance found its place on campus.

New students entering Grinnell in the late 50s and early 60s were already met with gendered expectations of student life on campus. The college was divided into seven women’s halls, located on South Campus and referred to as the Quadrangle, and nine men’s halls, located on North Campus.

Self-governance has been outlined as an important institutional value at Grinnell since at least 1887, when President George Gates stated in his inaugural address that “It is …better that the young people should learn to govern themselves.” However, many trace the origins of self-governance to the 1960s due to events surrounding housing and the end of segregated curfews by sex.

Following the February 1966 implementation of the grace period, punishment for missed curfew was three nights’ confinement plus one night for every five minutes they were late.

That same year, twenty students had a sleep-in to protest visitation rules, marking a series of acts pushing for the elimination of women’s hours, as they proposed new visitation hours, in the name of self-governance executed by students. They viewed open dorms as a way to foster reduced secrecy around sexuality. The administration at the time, led by President Leggett, resisted these changes, citing moral concerns and a desire for regulatory control through in loco parentis.

Seven hundred students gathered to discuss open dorms following a protest staged in November, indicating strong student interest in self-governance. The administration continued to enforce strict visitation rules, leading to further student dissatisfaction and calls for autonomy.

Associated Women Students (AWS) Board President Karen Lauterbach gave a statement to prioritize these demands, resulting in a series of discussions throughout the semester that ended in Senate adoption of a proposal to abolish women’s hours. She later went on to say that segregating sexes by isolating women was paternalistic.

However, strict visitation rules were still implemented, but equally on all genders. The South loggia and Mears Cottage doors locked at 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday nights. Men leaving the Quadrangle through the Main Hall entrance after the loggia and Mears doors were locked incurred late penalties for their dates. Curfew was rung at 12:00 a.m. on Fridays and 12:30 a.m. on Saturdays. Those leaving or entering the Quadrangle in any unauthorized way between closing hours were subjected to discipline by the AWS board and the College administration.

Over time, the concept of “home rule” emerged as students sought to establish their own visitation policies, reflecting a shift towards self-governance. This began in 1968, with Langan and Smith Halls being the first to adopt home rule. The student senate voted for a referendum on self-rule, which passed with 53 percent support for home rule without limitations.

In a 1968 archival file on the residence halls issue, a recent graduate had written in a letter to the College, “The segregation of the campus by sex will be minimized (as it should be) — and hopefully — the living environment will be geared more toward the student who changes and grows (socially as well as intellectually) in a four year period.”

In written correspondence to President Leggett on Oct. 26, 1968, J. Magee, chairman of Student-Faculty Committee on Student Affairs, tied the issue of open dorms directly to the decline of the idea of in loco parentis. Leggett confessed in Nov. 1968, “The college can no longer support the old notion, that residence hall management ought chiefly to reflect a kind of remedial parenthood — in loco parentis — environment.”

In February 1968, the Faculty-Student Committee to President Leggett recommended “the integration of men’s and women’s campuses, the initiation of an all-campus room drawing, the expansion of off-campus living options for upperclassmen, the establishment of a student advising system, and the continuation of an expanded resident advising program,” according to written correspondence. This proposal named this recommendation as the first experimental phase of a three to five year developmental program targeting quality improvements of on-campus and off-campus living.

In the spring of 1968, a committee of resident advisors, deans and student government officials selected student advisers for the 1968-69 school year, implementing what is now known as Community Advisors, or students who adopted a live-in counseling position amongst their peers.

One student, Richard Schneirov `70, said he believed his own “civil disobedience” sparked the success of dorm integration. After being ousted from his dorm following his refusal to keep quiet about being caught hosting his long distance girlfriend in the room, he was referred to the student Judicial Council, and requested a public hearing due to disillusionment by other issues being swept under the rug.

Before the trial, Leggett offered him no punishment if he would “stop the bad publicity.” Schneirov was the founder of the underground newspaper, The Pterodactyl, founding member of the Grinnell Student Movement and the Grinnell chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society. Beyond Grinnell, reporters from the Chicago Tribune covered Schneirov’s story. Upon refusal, Schneirov’s punishment was living off campus.

Schneirov cited a 1968 S&B poll, which revealed that 75 percent of respondents reported they had engaged in illegal visitations. These visitations fell under the time of the sexual revolution, which he said was not about sex, but rather discussing sexuality openly and accepting practices around it. He wrote that he took part in a “panty raid” during his first year, where men in his dorm arranged a visit to a women’s dorm to wait for women to throw their underwear down into their “waiting arms.”

In an editorial column, “A Good Change” in the Sept. 20, 1968 edition of The S&B, editors mockingly wrote, “The nature of things dictate that women will have a taming influence upon men. The proximity of women surely will help to remove some of the jungle conditions that used to exist in the boys’ dormitories and Cowles Dining Room.”

By 1974, only two single-sex dorms remained, reflecting a shift towards coeducational living arrangements. Current flagging remains on campus in the spirit of autonomy — self-gov is not dead.

To those interested in this intricate history, investigate Hoffmann’s Spring 2009 Mentored Advanced Project (MAP), “Establishing Home Rule: The Use of Self-Governance in 1960s Grinnell.” I consulted this project during my research, as well as some of her available notes on file.

Hoffmann provides an in-depth analysis of how the sixties concocted a desirable era for Grinnellians to use the self-governance structures available to them to advocate for home rule and diversity in a difficult decade of mass social change.