The new moral education: A northwestern perspective

Abstract

U 'ntil the early 1970s, college administrators acted in loco parentis by laying down codes of conduct for students. Curfews, single-sex dorms, and strict regulations against alcohol possession were among the many restrictions that attempted to hold student behavior to a university-sanctioned norm. Students devised ingenious schemes--like faking trips home for the weekend and hiding beer in toilet tanks--to circumvent the rules. Some went so far as to wed early, since marriage exempted them from in loco parentis regulations. Violation of these codes could be punished with anything from verbal reprimands to dormitory confinement. The sixties generation fought hard to relax in loco parentis restrictions. Authority came under scrutiny as free-spirited students threw convention to the wind. Communal living, free love, and the drug culture replaced the family unit, Judeo-Christian values, and traditional forms of social activity. With popular values rapidly changing, conventional in loco parentis collapsed under the weight of student protest. Ironically, the campus radicals of the past are largely behind the current effort to institutionalize new codes of campus conduct. The fight now, however, is not over curfews or dormitories, but over efforts to curb the expression of thought in the name of moral education. Recently, the mainstream media have taken note of moral education's increasing prevalence on America's campuses. On my campus, as I will later discuss, moral education manifested itself in confessional exercises. Many colleges and universities go further, however, establishing codes of political correctness. On some campuses, misdirecting a laugh or merely conversing in what appears to be a racially exclusive group can be grounds for receiving sensitivity training. Conventional in loco parentis, with its authoritative and absolute emphasis on the restriction of student behavior, provides a tradition from which current moral educators can draw legitimacy. Social reformers can use the earlier practice of in loco parentis in much the same way as justifications of affirmative action can be found in the citation of alternative admission standards for athletes and children of alumni. But both these gambits simply involve the use of one set of wrongs to justify others. Unlike the traditional form of in loco parentis, the new moral education draws a distinct line between parent and university. Rather than assuming the role of