The Bermuda Shorts Affair, 1960.

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Students on Campus wearing Bermuda shorts, one of the era's sartorial trends. c.1962. Photograph by The New York Daily News, courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.

Students had resisted constraining rules before 1968. In 1960, Columbia’s president Grayson Kirk complained about the lax sartorial standards of the university’s women, and Barnard’s administration agreed to ban offending items such as Bermuda shorts. Barnard students protested but also suggested that they police themselves, and offered a compromise. They would dictate limits on the kind of shorts allowed (length, color) and require students to wear a coat over shorts or slacks when walking through Columbia’s campus. Barnard’s president, Millicent McIntosh, agreed to this compromise. 

Bermuda Shorts Affair
The Bermuda Shorts Affair, 1960.