Turns out the term "senior salute" will no longer apply exclusively to West Point graduates bidding adieu.  St. Paul's, in Concord, New Hampshire, the prestigious and exclusive college preparatory school, is having its venerable reputation stained in open court by the trial of Owen Labrie, a senior at St Paul's last year, accused of rape by a younger female student at the school.  Labrie maintains that his accuser was not raped and actually consented to meet him in a maintenance room, where she would become enshrined in school history as a recipient of the school's version of a "senior salute," described as the conquest of suitably sexy co-eds before graduation 

The "tradition" of senior salute began at St Paul's when the school decided to accept females in 1971, ushering in an era of co-education at traditionally all-male boarding schools.  In some cases, all-female prep schools accepted men, but either way the justification was financial.  Many schools had no choice if they hoped to survive, but they papered over their economic decisions with feminist progressive platitudes.  As an example, a respected Virginia prep school elected to enroll females in the early 1990s, only to discover the bugaboo of unintended consequences set loose by falling for left-wing theoretical fabrications to justify a financial goal.

For example, male students resented the double standard of new disciplinary rules implemented to include the new females.  Girls were rarely disciplined, while the boys were subjected to even stricter rules to ensure that the girls were given special status.  Expulsions of boys for smoking was a favorite, as if they had been caught for drugs.  As it happened, girls were protected, all right – from the rules of the school, creating a leaden fog of ennui on campus.  With academic standards to accommodate the girls and the marginalization of boys, fewer graduates were accepted at top colleges.  Of course, the faculty and administrative staff blamed the students instead of themselves for throwing away over 100 years of successful results as an all-boy school.

The St. Paul's scandal is an example of the farm league for sexual misbehavior, preparing prep school graduates for the "Bigs," colleges where opportunity is plentiful, averages go up, and "hits" become more plentiful.  The college level incidence of sexual assault and rape is allegedly epidemic – until a closer look reveals that accusations of rape and sexual conduct are actually revenge methods against males by angry and sometimes unbalanced female students.  This is evidenced by the University of Virginia fabricated sexual assault, the incident at Duke University against a senior from Australia, and dozens of similar situations coast to coast.  The federal government has forced all colleges to implement kangaroo courts on campus against males if the local police refuse to ruin young men by bringing criminal charges with no evidence.

The answer to this state of odious affairs is to return to all-male prep schools.  And perhaps for colleges, wishful thinking perhaps, but not as ludicrous as the hysterical charade of college women accusing male classmates of sex crimes with no proof except their word.  Remember, it was unexplained hysteria among young women that began Sigmund Freud's journey into psychotherapy.