In the Place of the Parent: Risk Management and the Government of Campus Life
| Author | Jonathan Simon |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399400300103 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
15
IN
THE
PLACE
OF
THE
PARENT:
RISK
MANAGEMENT
AND
THE
GOVERNMENT
OF
CAMPUS
LIFE
JONATHAN
SIMON
University
of Miami
INTRODUCTION
ORE
THAN
twenty
years
after
the
era
of
mass
student
’unrest’
on
American
college
campuses
ended,
the
issue
of
how
colleges
and
Vl
universities
should
govern
the
non-academic
lives
of
their
students
and
other
denizens
has
once
again
risen
to
considerable
prominence.
Then
the
issue
was
how
far
college
administrators
could
go
in
using
their
governance
powers
to
suppress
a
widespread
protest
movement
based
in
large
part
on
opposition
to
the
Vietnam
war.
Today,
the
issue
is
how
far
administrators
should
go
in
suppressing
campus
social
life
in
the
name
of
protecting
health
and
safety.
FROM
PATERNALISM
TO
MANAGEMENT
From
the
start
of
the
Republic
until
well
after
the
Second
World
War,
the
rationale
for
governing
American
higher
education
was
articulated
largely
in
terms
of
its
paternalistic
duty
to
shape
the values
of
students.
The
law
played
a
key
role
in
framing
this
position
in
the
twentieth
century
through
the
legal
doctrine
of
’in
loco
parentis’,
by
which
higher
educational
institutions
were
held
to
stand
legally
’in
the
place
of
the
parent’.
On
the
basis
of
this
doctrine,
courts
SOCIAL
&
LEGAL
STUDIES
(SAGE,
London,
Thousand
Oaks
and
New
Delhi),
Vol.
3
(1994),
1~5
16
held
that
such
institutions
enjoyed
full
authority
to
govern
campus
life,
and
full
responsibility
for
breakdowns
in
that
control
(Gulland
and
Powell,
1989: 6).
Following
the
turmoil
of
the
1960s
and
1970s
a
broad
consensus
emerged
among
administrators
at
leading
colleges
and
universities
that
students,
even
undergraduates,
were
adult
consumers
of
education,
capable
of
making
their
own
life-style
choices
and
of
being
responsible
for
the
consequences.
Courts
followed
by
declaring
the
doctrine
of in
loco
parentis
dead.
This
essay
seeks
to
explore
the
new
politics
of
governing
campus
life,
in
particular
the
control
of
activities
like
alcohol
and
drug
use
which,
along
with
sex,
form
what
can
be
called
’campus
social
life’.’
Some
have
spoken
of
a
return
to in
loco
parentis,
others
have
suggested
that
we
are
experiencing
a
periodic
swing
from
control
to
tolerance
and
back
again.
These
conclusions,
while
superficially
plausible,
anticipate
a
deeper
historically-informed
understanding
of
how
campus
government
is
rationalized,
articulated
and
deployed.
Based
on
a
preliminary
examination
of
these
issues,
this
essay
contends
that
the
current
developments
are
best
seen
as
a
new
phase
in
a
crisis
of
government
in
higher
education
that
began
in
the
1960s
and
has
social
roots
in
post-Second
World
War
changes
in
the
positions
of
both
families
and
higher
education
in
American
society.
This
crisis
is
shared
by
other
institutions
with
paternalistic
pasts
including
prisons,
asylums
and
public
assistance
programs.
Indeed,
some
have
viewed
these
institutional
problems
as
part
of
a
more
general
crisis
of
government
in
late
or
postmodern
societies
(Habermas,
1975;
Burchell
et.
al.,
1991 ).
Part
I,
examines
in
loco
parentis.
The
legal
doctrine
of
in
loco
parentis
was
only
applied
to
higher
education
in
the
United
States
in
the
early
twentieth
century.
But
twentieth-century
judges
were
only
legalizing
notions
that
had
been
part
of
higher
education’s
explicitly
paternalistic
values
since
the
birth
of
the
Republic.
Indeed,
as
discussed
later,
the
doctrine
emerged
during
a
period
in
which
student
life
was
being
problematized
by
changes
in
the
make-up
of
the
student
body
and
in
the
social
function of
higher
education.
The
actual
exercise
of
governmental
power
changed
during
this
period
from
an
initial
emphasis
on
faculty
teaching
as
moral
pedagogy
and
example,
to
a
quasi
juridical
model
of
suspension
and
expulsion
as
punishment
for
violations
of
campus
disciplinary
codes.
Part
II
examines
the
decade
from
the
mid-1970s
to
the
mid-1980s
when
a
formation
of
campus
government
seemed
to
stabilize,
at
least
at
the
largest
public
and
private
institutions,
around
the
concept
of
the
student
as
consumer
and
higher
education
as
a
kind
of
service
provider.
A
program
of
deregulating
social
life
was
quietly
pursued.
The
technologies
of
power
behind
campus
discipline
remained
but
with
a
diminished
importance.
Part
III
looks
more
closely
at
the
last
seven
or
eight
years
during
which
the
laissez
faire
program
has
come
under
increasing
pressure
to
deal
with
health
and
safety
problems.
A
new
reform
program
is
emerging
around
the
problem
of
risk
management.
The
student
remains
a
consumer,
but
the
conditions
of
consumer
sovereignty
have
been
problematized
(as
they
have
in
the
market
for
more
conventional
goods
and
services
as
well).
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