University of Delaware - Blue Hen Yearbook (Newark, DE)

Page 11 text:

Delaware students reacted with fear and amazement at the founding of the Delaware chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society. Administrative bulletins warned that the FBI listed the SDS as a communist affiliated and infiltrated organization. Few thought that such a collection of malcontents could accomplish anything at apathetic Delaware. Few considered the un- known SDS candidate Ray Ceci seriously when he ran against the estab- lished power structure for SGA president in the spring of 1967. Campaign- ing for Student Power, the abolition of women's hours, and the abolition of compulsory ROTC, the SDS rallied a hard core of voters beneath the slogan We have nothing to lose but our chains' to narrowly defeat status quo candidate Steven Goldberg. With the conservative vote split among three candidates, Ceci had cleverly scored a victory by promising the student body what they wanted from the administration rather than what they thought they could get. A new spirit crackled across the campusone of defiance, one of power. Delaware had suddenly splashed into the stream of nationwide college movements.

Page 13 text:

Beside political revolution, the Spring of 1967 heralded the rise of the Delaware coed as the champion of the sexual revolution. Inspired by the passing of a new civil rights law, Delaware women began airing serious complaints about the myriad of restrictions imposed on the weaker sex. AWS Playbill had long served as a forum for coed complaints, and Harring- ton B, defying AWS censors, delivered perhaps the bawdiest lines ever spoken on a Delaware stage only to have the curtain dropped on them midway through their performance. With final exams during the coming week, coeds from Russell D organ- ized the Russell Raiders to successfully stage a panty raid on neighboring men's dorm, Russell C Zoo. Repenting of their hasty actions, the Russell Raiders returned the contraband articles to their legitimate owners the following evening in the dining hall. The men of the Zoo were displeased to find that their unmentionables had been dyed pink and returned the com- pliment with a barage of dining hall rolls. This incident launched the first campus-wide panty raid at the Univer- sity. For two long nights, Delaware men and women panty-raided and pro- tested. Students sat in at the President's house, marched the wrong way down one way Main Street, defied state troopers outside Harrington B and snatched panties and undergarments drifting down from eagerly opened windows. In one short semester Delaware had changed from an academic prison haunted by fear and suspicion, to a University of active, excited students. When exams ended, Delaware Students, many with lower than normal grades, left for home to read of their exploits in local papers and to boast to envious parents of their wild forages across the placid Georgian campus that used to be Delaware.