Sex, Drugs, Booze, and, Oh Yes, “Education”

by Emma Verhey

“Lines on bad bitches’ chests.” I chuckled as I read through the first responses of an informal poll I put out asking UC Santa Barbara students what they believed the “college experience” entailed. It was a joke, of course, but it reflected a popular idea: there is something entirely un-academic integral to the modern college experience. Santa Barbara is a notable example of this, with UCSB ranked as the top party school in the United States by Niche for the past two years. I can attest to this on a personal level. College has often been described to me as “the best time of your life”—the time you find yourself via philosophical experimentation and an endless stream of drugs, sex, and booze.

Or rather, that college is the time to embrace the maximum level of freedom possible.

However, college was not always this way. For much of its history, universities had high expectations and strict rules regarding student behavior, both on and off-campus. From the founding of Harvard University in 1636 up until the 1970s, universities acted in loco parentis, or “in the place of parents.” This was not simply a code of conduct but a feature deeply embedded into American law. In the words of 18th century British legal scholar William Blackstone, “[a parent] may delegate part of his parental authority, during his life, to the tutor or schoolmaster of his child; who is then in loco parentis, and had such a portion of the power of the parent committed to his charge, viz. that of restraint and correction, as may be necessary to answer the purposes for which he is employed.”

The 1960s: Administration Cedes Control to Students

Blackstone’s words widely influenced the decisions of courts and lawyers for centuries. Though in loco parentis was challenged as unconstitutional many times, the courts continually ruled in favor of the universities as agents with parental rights. As the Supreme Court of Illinois stated in 1866 case People v. Wheaton, “...so long as [the university’s] rules violate neither divine nor human law, we have no more authority to interfere than we have to control the domestic discipline of a father in his family.” Thus, many universities enforced chapel attendance, dorm curfews, dress codes, restricted club allegiances, and even students’ ability to dine at non-university establishments. If a student was caught violating any of these rules, they could be expelled without trial or even notice of the rules they violated.

The cracks in this system began to surface in the 1960s. Motivated by civil rights and anti-war movements, students began challenging institutions they believed expressed arbitrary authority. In the case of Grinnell College, students challenged dorm policies. Up until 1968, residence halls at Grinnell had been segregated by gender, had strict curfew enforcements and limited co-ed visitation hours. After a number of protests and administrative meetings, these students won the ability to self-determine dorm rules and regulations, eventually resulting in co-ed residence halls and 24/7 visitation hours.

This shift at Grinnell College was just a small crack in the broader system of in loco parentis. The real transformations did not happen in student government halls, but in courtrooms all across the country. By the early 1970s, in loco parentis had been dismantled by myriad court cases in favor of student rights. Universities were no longer legally permitted to regulate students’ personal lives beyond the classroom, giving students broader freedoms and greater power. But these students didn’t just want the freedom to have sex or protest—they wanted a voice in how their universities were run.

“Character Growth,” “Academic Discipline” Out the Window

The shift away from in loco parentis to student self-governance and the facilitator model that followed represented a transformation in the capitalist relations between producer and consumer. By asserting their power over the university administration, students were making the case that they, not their parents, were the consumers of the university product, and therefore, should have their demands represented in order to maintain consumer loyalty.

Before the repeal of in loco parentis, universities sold parents the promise that their child’s attendance would transform them into educated, well-rounded, and moral adults. After its repeal, they began selling experiences to students, rather than services to parents. Colleges stopped promising character growth and academic discipline, transforming themselves into a playground where students could get their hedonistic impulses out of the way in preparation for the “real world.”

This model is not inherently negative as the skill of self-governance is valuable. However, while college students have gained freedom, they have lost something too. The redaction of in loco parentis shifted students from one extreme to another. Qualities such as moral strength, self-restraint, and discipline, are the last things to be valued in university culture today. Political activism has filled the moral void that character used to inhabit. Partying, hook-up culture, drug and alcohol consumption have replaced initiation through mentorship.

Hedonism is propped up as a core pillar of the “college experience,” and universities wash their hands of the young adults they were entrusted with, as they are rejected from the workforce for being “too immature.” We’ve sold young adults the fantasy that the facilitator model prepares them for life, when in reality, we’ve stripped them of their core support systems. We have exchanged mentorship-style relationships for the promise that students will learn “self-governance”—as if it takes tens of thousands of dollars to learn such things.

The facilitator model grants more freedom by offering less services. On a systematic level, students today receive less support through non-parental relationships than students did in the pre-facilitator model. While few would welcome the return of in loco parentis, it is time we strike moderation with the past and present. College students would be better prepared for the workforce if their universities were re-integrating systematic mentorship and higher expectations for their behavior.

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Emma Verhey is a film and media undergraduate at UCSB with an interest in youth culture.

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