Yalies Move to End Parietal Rules As Princeton Gets Hour Increase

Parietals became the issue at two Ivy League universities this month, as students in three of Yale's residential colleges voted to abolish all restrictions and Princeton's trustees granted student requests to increase parietals.

The student resolutions at Yale have not been approved by either the college masters or the Executive Committee of Yale. "The students say that they have abolished parietals, but the masters deny it," Alan Boles, chairman of the Yale Daily News, said yesterday. "Since parietals are hardly enforced anyway, the issue is pretty much undecided," Boles noted.

Present System

Under Yale's present system, girls are allowed in students' rooms until mid-night on weekends, and by special permission during the week.

On April 16, students at Branford and Davenport voted to drop parietals completely. Two weeks earlier, Jonathan Edwards College passed a resolution extending parietals from 11 a.m. to mid-night Sunday. The resolution called the issue one of "student power" and of the privilege to "regulate one's personal life." The other nine Yale colleges have taken no action.

Boles speculated that the masters and Executive Committee may soon extend parietals, probably until 2 a.m. weekends.

Princeton's Board of Trustees voted Saturday to extend parietals from mid-night until 2 a.m. on weekends and from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. during the week. The action followed a resolution against parietals which was presented to the Trustees by the Princeton Undergraduate Assembly.

In a prepared statement, the Princeton trustees said that "visiting hours should be realistic in relation to social activities on the campus."

Richard K. Rein, chairman of the Daily Princetonian, said that the trustees' decision may have been in response to pressure from an ad hoc group of students called the Radical Action Group. The students threatened to send letters to parents of all members of the new class of 1972 asking them to "dissuade their sons from coming to Princeton" if parietals were not extended.