Joe Biden once joked about his preoccupation with college “panty raids,” a 1950s fad in which male students would burst into female accommodations and take women’s underwear.
According to the text of a Dec. 3, 1986 speech to the National League of Cities in San Antonio, Texas — archived at the Library of Congress — Biden, now 76, recalled watching John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address as a senior in high school and said the speech “kindled the bonfire that started all over again.”
“For those of you who look back on it and say, ‘Things are different now than they were then,’ let me remind you — in 1959 and early 1960, there was no great movement on the college campuses. The only thing we were concerned about in those days was jobs and panty raids,” he said.
Biden said Kennedy’s comments about a “new generation of Americans” prompted him to get interested in politics, a feeling he said he nearly forgot after over a decade in politics.
“You know, I’ve been in this job so long that I almost forgot what got me involved,” he said in the 1986 speech. “I almost forgot how I used to feel and how good I used to feel about what I do.”
The fact that Biden was joking about a 1950s prank played on women as late as 1986, when he was 44, could harm his image with younger women. He has already had to defend himself against a slew of allegations that he touched women without their consent; he subsequently made light of the claims.
“Panty raids” were a popular school prank in the 1950s and 1960s, during which groups of male students would break into female dorms and steal their underwear. Last September, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s college fraternity was reported to have participated in a panty raid in 1985. A member of the fraternity told Yale Daily News that the underwear was obtained “consensually.”
The first panty raid is said to have been in 1952 at the University of Michigan, when about 600 male students stormed the women’s dormitory confiscating their lingerie. According to the Bad Fads Museum: “Although the panty raids were seemingly harmless, some more serious students felt it disrupted their studies.
“Others felt that their privacy had been invaded, and the police were called in on several accounts. Despite complaints, panty raids continued on throughout the 1950s. The practice finally seemed to die out with the 1960s. It has been speculated that panty raids lost their thrill with the onset of the sexual revolution.”
It is unclear whether Biden ever participated in a panty raid during his time in college, and the Biden campaign did not respond to request for comment. He attended the University of Delaware from 1961 to 1965 and the University of Syracuse College of Law from 1965 to 1968.
Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race it emerged he had plagiarized a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock and a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at Syracuse.
He also boasted that he finished in the top half of his law school class, although in fact he finished near the bottom. He told a New Hampshire voter that “I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do” and continued: “I went to (Syracuse) law school on a full academic scholarship.” He added that he “ended up in the top half” of his class.
In fact, Biden finished 76th in a law school class of 85 and had a partial, need-based scholarship as well as student loans.
[Also read: Top Obama adviser: Biden in ‘candidate protection program’ as aides work to avoid gaffes]
“Panty raids” were popular school pranks in the 1950s and 1960s, during which groups of male students would break into female dorms and steal their underwear. Last September, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s college fraternity was reported to have participated in a panty raid in 1985. A member of the fraternity told Yale Daily News that the underwear was obtained “consensually.”
It is unclear whether the former vice president and 2020 presidential candidate ever participated in a panty raid during his time in college. He attended the University of Delaware from 1961 to 1965 and the Syracuse University College of Law from 1965 to 1968. During Biden’s first year at Syracuse University, a panty raid on the campus was broken up by college police on Nov. 9, 1965, according to reports from the time.
During Biden’s first year at Syracuse University, a panty raid on the campus was broken up by college police on Nov. 9, 1965, according to reports from the time. A former Syracuse University student noted in a 2012 online posting: “At SU in the early 60’s (61-65), mooning and panty raids were diversionary “sports” that many students participated in.
“Mooning could be done from frat house windows, moving cars with windows rolled down … Panty raids were spontaneous efforts by students fed up with hours of studying. Crowds of running, yelling students would rush to the hill yelling Panty Raid!! Panty Raid!!”
