Alessandro van den Brink | Animal House

Small Talk | Harvard’s sanction against Final Clubs is a scary precedent for universities

By Alessandro van den Brink 08/30/16 11:19pm

In May, Harvard announced a historic move to enact penalties on its Final Clubs and greek life organizations. The ruling officially stated that, starting with the Class of 2021, any student who is an active member of a Final Club (an elite social club at Harvard) or a fraternity or sorority cannot attain a leadership role in any Harvard-affiliated club or athletic team. This would mean that even a perfect student with no academic or disciplinary blemishes could be punished simply for joining a community that the school has vilified to a remarkably extreme degree.

As could be expected, Harvard students — particularly those in one of these “single gender clubs” — expressed outrage at the ruling, which was proposed by Rakesh Khurana, dean of the college. Three clubs — the Porcellian Club, the Fly Club and the Sablière Society — published criticisms of the initiative in The Harvard Crimson. Alumni, such as the president of Fly’s graduate body Richard Porteus, have condemned the ruling as well. As Porteus said in a recent New York Times feature, “If Harvard really were to become serious about preventing sexual assault rather than using it as a way to push an ideological stance, they’d drill down to find out exactly what is occurring rather than trying to throw a moral pall over any man or woman who belongs to these clubs.”

As a former Final Club member, Porteus is obviously biased, but his points are nonetheless valid. Khurana suggested the sanctions because he believes that the single gender clubs perpetuate a culture of exclusivity at Harvard that is unbecoming of the academic and moral principles of the school. “In their recruitment practices and through their extensive resources and access to networks of power, these organizations propagate exclusionary values that undermine those of the larger Harvard College community,” Khurana wrote. On top of this, concerns over gender discrimination and sexual assault were crucial to the decision, as Khurana strongly condemned the misogyny largely present in the clubs’ communities.

To be fair, the culture propagated by these clubs has not been particularly exemplary. A report from a task force on the prevention of sexual assault conducted by the Harvard administration describes in great detail the same sexism and misconduct that Khurana condemns, such as parties in which women were only granted entry based on their appearance. One of the most striking statistics from the report is a survey conducted that shows that 47 percent of female college seniors who participated heavily in Final Club events experienced some form of “nonconsensual sexual conduct” at some point during college. This is in contrast with 31 percent of all female college seniors for the corresponding question.

While the conduct of these organizations is statistically problematic, by attacking the institutions as a whole Harvard is doing nothing to combat the actual issues of sexual assault and misogyny on campus. Instead of actively promoting education on consent and thoroughly investigating individual cases of sexual assault at these clubs, the school has declared anyone in these communities guilty, regardless of whether they have done anything or not.

Furthermore, it is fundamentally wrong for any school to punish free association. Regulating social behavior simply can not happen through policies and sanctions, which only enrage and alienate the affected organizations. These clubs are not even technically associated with Harvard; they receive no funding or accommodations from the school and therefore the idea that they should be under Harvard’s jurisdiction is absurd.

Every year, Penn warns freshmen of the dangers of off-campus fraternities and sororities such as Apes, Tabard and Theos, but it doesn’t punish them for opting to join any of these groups. Hopefully, Penn is not swayed by Harvard’s actions and does not follow in its footsteps.

Exclusion and elitism have always been issues at Ivy League schools (yes, even Penn), but they are not worthy of punishment as they are products of nothing more than free speech and expression. Fundamental changes in these communities have to start with the students themselves. By enacting what appears on the surface to be largely unenforceable rulings, Harvard has made an enemy of the community it needs to cooperate with. The school doesn’t need to accept these clubs with open arms, but it can’t expect to see positive results through fear tactics and strict regulations.

ALESSANDRO VAN DEN BRINK is a College junior studying economics, from New York. His email address is alevan@ sas.upenn.edu. “Small Talk” usually appears every other Wednesday.

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