Harvard Restrictions Could Reshape Exclusive Student Clubs
By STEPHANIE SAUL

The all-male final clubs at Harvard University have long been bastions of money, power and privilege. But on Friday, 225 years after the oldest club was founded, the university announced restrictions on the organizations that could ultimately be their undoing, or at least significantly change their character by forcing them to become coed.

Starting with the class that enters Harvard in fall 2017, members of single-sex clubs will be prohibited from holding leadership positions on campus, according to a statement released by the university’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust. This would include athletic team captains; many club members have historically been captains. Members will also be barred from receiving the official recommendations required for prestigious postgraduate fellowships and scholarships, such as the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships, the statement said.

The new rules will apply not only to the six male final clubs, but also to other single-sex organizations, including five women’s final clubs and nine sororities and fraternities. An estimated 30 percent of undergraduates at Harvard belong to such clubs. Two other formerly male final clubs have already voted to admit women.

Richard T. Porteus, a member of the Harvard Class of 1978 and graduate president of one of the final clubs, the Fly Club, said preliminary discussions were underway with lawyers to challenge the new rules under the theory that they infringe on the right to free association.

“We value what we’ve created over time and the opportunity that it offers for undergrads to develop as undergrads and, over the course of their lives, as people,” Mr. Porteus said. “And we won’t abandon it. So whatever legal, moral, ethical means we have of sticking up for our principles, I’m sure we’ll consider and choose among. But yes, litigation is certainly not off the table.”

The Porcellian Club, the oldest of the groups, issued its own statement: “We are disappointed with this unfair and punitive decision that attacks Harvard’s own students because they make a choice to freely assemble at unaffiliated, off-campus, private organizations.”

Two months ago, a sexual assault task force said the final clubs raised “serious concerns” that required attention from Harvard. Surveys conducted for the university, as well as interviews with undergraduate women, had found that some final clubs fostered an atmosphere of misogyny, sexual misconduct and entitlement.

Harvard is not the first university to take action against single-sex clubs. Fraternities and sororities were banned at Amherst College in 2014, and Wesleyan University announced that same year that it would require fraternities to be coed. Middlebury College is among several other small northeastern institutions that banned such clubs years ago.

Even so, with fraternities at a number of universities under fire as the focus of sexual misconduct complaints, the decision by Harvard could spur other colleges to restrict single-sex clubs.

In announcing the decision, Dr. Faust described it as another step in Harvard’s efforts to become a “truly inclusive” community.

“Over time,” she said, “Harvard has transformed its undergraduate student body as it welcomed women, minorities, international students and students of limited financial means as an increasing proportion of its population. But the campus culture has not changed as rapidly as the student demography.”

The final clubs have a storied history at Harvard. Theodore Roosevelt was a member of the Porcellian Club. Franklin D. Roosevelt was admitted to the Fly Club, also the choice of at least two Massachusetts governors. The Kennedy brothers — John, Robert and Edward — were final club members.

Tensions with Harvard date back more than 30 years, to 1984, when the male final clubs and the university severed official ties over admitting women as members. None of the single-sex groups are now officially recognized by the university, according to a Harvard spokesman. The houses of the male final clubs are not on campus property.

Last year, aware of mounting pressure from the university, two of the clubs — Fox and Spee — voted to admit women.

Dr. Faust said last fall that she and Harvard College’s dean, Rakesh Khurana, were weighing various options to address exclusivity, sexual assault and alcohol abuse in the clubs. And in March, the administration delivered an ultimatum that the clubs should become coed by April 15.

In April, representatives of 13 groups, including the six all-male final clubs, met with Harvard administrators, who had also considered banning the clubs altogether.

The day before the meeting, the president of the Porcellian Club’s alumni group, Charles M. Storey, wrote in a letter to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, “Forcing single-gender organizations to accept members of the opposite sex could potentially increase, not decrease, the potential for sexual misconduct.”

In addition to criticizing many of them as centers of sexual misconduct, the March 8 report issued by the Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault said the male final clubs perpetuated a class divide on campus.

The clubs are “imbued with a certain historical tradition that elevates members’ social status on campus,” creating an aura of sexual entitlement, the report said. “A woman’s physical appearance is often seen as the basis for entry to these spaces, and female students described a general expectation that entering final club spaces could be read as implicit agreement to have sexual encounters with members,” it said.

Male students who are not members are excluded from parties at many of the clubs, according to the report, enabling “a gender ratio that makes it easier for members to have a sexual encounter.”

Party themes and invitations have reflected misogynistic views and reinforced a sense of sexual entitlement, according to the report, which also pointed to “competitive games between members where a man will ‘win’ a particular woman or compete for the most sexual triumphs.”

哈佛促性平 出招壓制純男性社團

美國名校哈佛大學第一位女校長德魯．佛斯特六日宣布校方新政策，表示為讓校園文化更開放，自二○一七年秋季班開始，純男性校園社團的成員不得擔任運動團隊的隊長或其他校園社團的社長。

新規定同時適用於校園內其他單一性別非正式團體，如兄弟會和姐妹會。雖然這些團體並未獲校方正式認可，但校方高層曾一再鼓勵它們勿以性別排他。

此外，根據新規定，加入單一性別社團的學生，未來也拿不到系主任批准的獎學金。這項規定適用於二○一七年秋季班入學的大一新生。不過，目前已在校的一萬名哈佛大學生或今秋入學的學生不在此列。

佛斯特發表聲明解釋新規定的成因，表示哈佛雖已為女性和少數民族敞開大門，校園文化卻仍封閉。她說：「一個真正包容的社區，應讓學生有機會參與校園生活，不因專斷的理由遭到排擠。」

哈佛最有名的學生社團群被稱做「最後社團」（final clubs），皆為純男生社團，近幾年因老是出事而受到密切檢視。今年三月，最後社團傳出和他們聯誼的大四女生中，有四成七遭到性侵。報告指控社團的男會員認為他們有「性交權利 」。

兩年來，有兩個最後社團迫於校方壓力，開始招收女成員。但其他最後社團仍堅持女生止步。已創立兩百廿五年，歷史最悠久的波斯里安社團是其一。該社團出了許多名人，包括前總統羅斯福。該社團的校友堅稱性侵不是問題，將女生引進門，性侵才真會層出不窮。

哈佛大學部學務長庫拉納說，最後社團排除女會員作法，在廿一世紀毫無立足之地。庫拉納發表聲明說：「哈佛在克服性別歧視上，已有一段長久且複雜的歷史。每個時代改變步伐都很緩慢，還經常遭到強力反彈。」

新的懲罰性規定甚至引來校外批評。費城「教育界個人權利基金會」砲轟校方此種打壓結社自由的「瘋狂舉動」。佛斯特宣布新規定時即表示，她不奢望新政策所向披靡。她寫道：「文化的改變本非易事，我們社區的成員一定有人不同意學校前進的方式。」

哈佛一九七七年才正式招收女學生，且女學生全在哈佛分校拉德克利夫女子文理學院就學，直到一九九九年才完全合併。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/us/harvard-restrictions-could-reshape-exclusive-student-clubs.html

2016-05-08．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯王麗娟