Higher Education
Though in loco parentis continues to apply to primary and secondary education in the U.S., application of the concept has largely disappeared in higher education. However, this was not always the case.
Prior to the 1960s, undergraduates were subject to many restrictions on their private lives. Women were generally subject to curfews as early as 10:00, and dormitories were usually entirely one-sex. Some universities expelled students—especially female students—who were somehow "morally" undesirable. Some universities even insisted that male and female student sitting on the same chair have at least two feet on the ground at all times. More importantly, universities saw fit to restrict freedom of speech on campus, often forbidding organizations dealing with "off-campus" issues from organizing, demonstrating, or otherwise acting on campus. These restrictions were severely criticized by the student movements of the 1960s, and the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley formed partly on account of them, inspiring students elsewhere to step up their opposition.
The landmark 1961 case Dixon v. Alabama was the beginning of the end for in loco parentis in U.S. higher education. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that Alabama State College could not summarily expel students without due process.
Read more about this topic: In Loco Parentis
Famous quotes containing the words higher education, higher and/or education:
“I never feel so conscious of my race as I do when I stand before a class of twenty-five young men and women eager to learn about what it is to be black in America.”
—Claire Oberon Garcia, African American college professor. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B3 (July 27, 1994)
“The momentary charge at Balaklava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than that as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that that will go unsung?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“‘Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.”
—William Congreve (1670–1729)