The legal interpretation came from the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow. It was retained by HUC for what President Stephen H. Kaplan called "a substantial sum."

Robert H. Johnson, representing Hill & Barlow, concluded in a memorandum that the university, as the owner of "lodging houses," is liable regardless of parietals.

"The university's exposure to liability cannot be measured by the clock, even if one indulges in the arbitrary assumption that a woman who enters a dormitory after, say 1 a.m., is more likely to engage in unlawful sexual intercourse than one who enters shortly after lunch. The statute requires actual knowledge of a specific purpose of a specific woman and liability will not be predicated on a suspicion or probability, or on sociological speculation about the nocturnal habits of females."

The revived efforts against parietals were conducted in cloak-and-dagger secrecy and most committee members had no prior knowledge of what was coming up. No one was willing to comment publicly after the meeting, although Dean Ford said "both sides" raised questions.

John Hanify '71, who read the prepared HUC recommendation, said after the meeting that it was the first time "we got down to the substantive issue of parietals. The talk is no longer about legal restrictions but about relevant questions such as, would the students accept the responsibility involved."

HUC was invited to the committee meeting some time ago to report on the progress of enforcing the new parietal hours. Hanify said the system is considered inadequate by students, tutors and masters. "HUC finds it extremely difficult to make any kind of suggestions about enforcement...when attitudes toward the system are very negative."

Michael A. Roosevelt, HUC treasurer, claimed that "the whole system is crumbling."

The student representatives had hoped that the committee would consider their recommendation at a special meeting before the next regular session scheduled in mid-December. But this appeared unlikely. "We still have some work to do and and the committee will have to do a lot of thinking," Roosevelt said. "We will pursue all informal routes of communication to discuss our proposal."

If a woman stays in a dorm after the restricted hour, the present system encourages her to stay all night and slip away during parietals the next day, Hanify said. Elimination of hours would realize "in fact much of what the present system has evolved toward," he told the committee.