BU Dean Calls Cheating and Sex 'Moral Problems'

Cheating and sex are "the two most obvious moral issues on the modern campus," Dr. Robert H. Hamill, dean of Boston University's Marsh Chapel said in his sermon last Sunday.

"The University cannot grant students such facilities for sexual experiments as do not exist anywhere else in society," he said. Nevertheless, some students, in demanding more relaxed parietal rules "throw tantrums, kicking and screaming for what they want."

Hamill defined the "sexual revolution" as consisting of "more sex, more sex per person, more public display of sex and more liberties than ever before." He said it was "due considerably to indulgent parents, confused clergy, permissive counselors, and to the availability of contraceptives."

"The patterns of early dating have turned young people sour," Hamill declared.

He then cited the "intense pressures of our society," which include "clothing styles, the Madison Avenue exploitation of sex, the movies and literature," all of which add up to an "intense erotic stimulation." However, he continued, "our society at the same time denies young people their natural fulfillment. The laws and taboos, the demands of longer schooling, and jobs, and military service all require of them an unnatural restraint."

The answer to this conflict, in Hamill's opinion, is the "control of sexual stimulation in advertising, restraint upon erotic material in press and movies, and reform of the economic order which exploits sex for its own profit."

And in rebuttal of the so-called "new morality" in sex, Hamill said. "The new morality may turn out to be new but not moral. If all sex standards are called prudish, then patriotism might be called sentimental or scholarship be called effeminate."

Hamill also pointed out that 40 to 30 per cent of students cheat more or less in their studies.