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R.I.P., W.F.B.
Today marks the passing of the father of the modern conservative movement. William F. Buckley died at his desk while, presumably, penning another chapter in his life’s work of standing athwart history and yelling “Stop!” 
While Mr. Buckley and I never met, I was honored to have him call one of my cases a “speck of a precedent” while commenting on the changing times, sexual mores, and his alma mater, Yale University.
Shock time at Yale.
National Review
Date: 10/13/1997
Author: Buckley, William F., Jr.We note the strange situation at Yale. The background: freshman student Elisha Dov Hack enrolls and is reminded (he knew about such arrangements beforehand) that he is expected to occupy living quarters one flight above, one below, living quarters occupied by Yale coeds.
Now theoretically a flight of stairs between Gentlemen and Ladies is as impermeable as the markings that distinguish Men from Women in hotel or airport lavatories. But young Mr. Hack, who is an Orthodox Jew, objects in principle to the sexual proximity of such arrangements and empirically to the renowned permeability of upstairs-downstairs college lodgings. So what did he do?
He appealed to Yale against the ordinance that freshmen and sophomores have to occupy university quarters. There is an easy way out of this, but costly. If you pay Yale for your room and board ($6,850), who cares where you actually live? in an apartment down the street or at the other end of the city, as far as official Yale is concerned.
But Mr. Hack is a creature of the current culture, which opts for a lawsuit wherever possible. So he is cranking up a complaint alleging that Yale is discriminating against his religion. The reasoning is as follows: My religion says I shouldnt live cheek-by-jowl with a member of the opposite sex unless we are married. Yale enforces such arrangements. Therefore Yale discriminates against my religion.
It would seem a loony charge, but Time magazine reports that the lawyers are ready to take it on, among them Alan Dershowitz. And there is a speck of a precedent in the recent case where a student offended by the seamlessness of college living arrangements sued the University of Nebraska and was permitted to seek shelter off campus.
The intimate-life arrangements are defended by Yale as elsewhere everywhere on the grounds that by such experience men learn about women and vice versa. But young Elisha makes a persuasive point, by pleading that the impulse to climb the flight of stairs and have at it is by no means energetically discouraged on campus. He has noticed the omnipresent supplies of condoms and the course on safe sex, to which he declined to expose himself.
Now he may sound a bit of a prude, but by coincidence, the issue of the Yale Daily News that welcomed incoming freshmen last week published a page on social life at Yale, one part of which was headed, “Yalies find strange sites for sex.” The story by Isaiah Wilner, manifestly not an Orthodox Jew, was exuberant on the matter of opportunities on campus. “Yale offers more than its share of breathtaking vistas from its Gothic towers students make use of the centuries-old halls, residential colleges, and libraries first as places of study but secondly as kinky havens of intercourse.”
The reader doubts the reporter intended to use the word “kinky” because the balance of the article suggests absolutely orthodox fornication. But the idea is certainly conveyed to the freshmen that sex on campus is what one . . . does, like canasta or lacrosse. Indeed, that sex is a challenge of sorts.
And by no means confined to bedrooms. “[I]n its mythic proportions, if not in reality, public sex predominates. I have a friend whos made a pact with one of his best friends that if neither has sex in the stacks before graduation theyll hook up together, said one Yale student. And the reporter advises the incoming class that “Some seniors have goals of having sex in Yales famous places, such as Harkness Tower and the Sterling Memorial Library stacks.” Others just get busy in public restaurants and laundry rooms.
The whole business of sardine-in-the-can living between the sexes was explored in Yales conservative monthly, The Free Press, last year, with students of both sexes giving their views in the matter. One earnest contributor recited learned anthropological and philosophical reasons against coeducation-become-cohabitation by concluding, “On top of all that, its just plain icky.”
If there is a moral question to be considered one supposes that a Yale student could discover it in the library stacks among the discarded condoms. But Yale is hardly alone on the matter: the Playboy philosophy rules. But there are other impulses lurking.
John Cloud of Time writes, ” . . . the growth of religious conservatism could rekindle the flames. Today you have a larger interest among students in religion, whether its Orthodox Judaism or . . . Fundamentalist Christianity,” says David Merkowitz of the American Council on Education. One survey indicates that half of freshmen identify themselves as Protestant, up from a third 15 years ago.
And plaintiff Rachel Wohlgelernter says, “I dont think its a uniquely Jewish issue. Its a moral issue.”
Jumping Jehoshaphat what will they come up with next!
R.I.P., W.F.B.,
The Speck