Sexual relationships have always been one of the most controversial issues at boarding school, where academics mesh with personal life. The administration has traditionally struggled find to a balance between intellectual pursuits and freedom for students to enjoy a “normal” high school experience. Prior to the merger between the all-boys Phillips Academy and all-girls Abbot Academy in 1973, harsh rules were in place to keep the two sexes segregated. Abbot girls could participate in Abbot Walks, a series of 45-minute excursions around campus or the town of Andover for athletic credit. The routes for these walks were specifically planned to avoid seeing any Phillips boys and the Abbot gym teachers kept them under close surveillance – the girls were forbidden from acknowledging any boys that they might encounter on their walk. The two genders were only allowed to interact in sanctioned circumstances such as tea dances, plays, and mixers. Instructor in French Natalie Schorr, who graduated from Abbot in 1962, said, “Of course Abbot girls knew Andover boys – there were ways to get to know people – [but] Abbot was really strict…[though] I’m sure the rules were broken sometimes.” As the idea of co-education evolved, Abbot girls began to attend some classes with the Andover boys as well as share extracurricular activities. However, students remained heavily supervised, and thus the genders separate. In March of 1973, Frank Lee ’75 said to The Phillipian, “[The] Saturday night [dance] is almost like a class. Meeting girls contains the same competitive atmosphere. Guys are forced into chauvinism because they are afraid to meet girls on a personal level. Therefore, they revert to looking at them as objects.” Though Phillips Academy was slowly incorporating girls into their system, inter-sex room visiting, or parietals, was never considered until the schools merged just before the 1973-74 school year. By the PA-Abbot merger in 1973, Phillips Exeter, St. Paul’s School, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Northfield-Mount Herman had already embraced co-education. In Feb. 1974, the administration decided to create a parietal system at PA. The Head of School at the time, Dr. Theodore Sizer, decreed that each cluster would determine its own separate set of rules. Dr. Sizer required the clusters to follow two guidelines for their rules: faculty members must be present in the dorm during a parietal and there must be establishd hours for parietals. He also clarified that any parietal occurring outside of the set hours would be considered a major violation of the rules. From this policy came a hodgepodge of different parietal rules. For example, in Abbot cluster, only Uppers and Seniors could have parietals, while West Quad South offered room visits every other Sunday for only two hours. A number of the clusters, such as Northwest and Rabbit Pond, left the issue up to the individual house counselor’s discresion. In Feb. 1974 Dr. Sizer said to The Phillipian, “I have no problem in being certain that sexual relations between high school students are often dangerous and harmful and that Andover cannot condone them….I want to prevent heavy sex, as there is so little probability of its being fulfilling and constructive. As for the exceptions, I feel that we cannot accommodate them, and I would hope for their mature understanding as to why Andover cannot condone it as a community.” In Jan. 1978, the faculty passed a proposal that extended parietals to include Friday nights on five-day weeks. Though the faculty worried that this commitment would intrude upon their relaxation time, the Blue Book clearly stated that faculty members did not need to inconvenience themselves to be available during parietal hours. Certain members also entertained reservations because Friday night parietals directly contradicted the original reason for parietals; they were meant for boys and girls to study together. In response to this apprehension, Chairperson David Cobb said to The Phillipian in Jan. 1978, “[In 1973 when the previous parietal system was created, the faculty] thought parietals had a special social-educational value. I think it still does. Meeting members of the opposite sex is an important part of growing up.” In Jan. 1978, The Phillipian board’s editorial said, “[Parietals have evolved] from a controversial issue when introduced in 1973 to an accepted part of PA life.” For the 1978-79 school year, the Academy experimented with extended parietal times in Flagstaff. Flagstaff students were now allowed to visit the rooms of students of the opposite sex between 1:00 and 8:00 p.m. At the time, other boarding schools had installed many different polices: Hotchkiss did not permit any inter-sex room visiting, while the Putney School of Vermont had no restrictions, except overnight visits. Despite The Phillipian board’s promising statement that parietals were no longer a “controversial issue,” the school erupted into another debate over parietals two years later, in the fall of 1979. Former Pine Knoll Representative Larry Harris said to The Phillipian in Nov. 1979 that students wanted to change the policy again because “a lot of people were busted for illegal parietals.” All six clusters, except for Flagstaff, decided that individual house counselors and the students in their dorms should determine parietal rules within the dorm. Flagstaff established visiting hours as a cluster, from 12:00 to 8:00 p.m., though each house counselor would decide on a check-in method for his or her own dorm. In Nov. 1979, Former Pine Knoll Cluster Dean Susan Lloyd said to The Phillipian, “Most parietals are used for visiting others, [but] I know that some parietals are used to pursue sexual intimacy. There is always a danger, since sex is such a powerful drive and can drive people beyond what they’re ready for.”
