Harvard doesn't want its students to join single-sex fraternities or sororities or "final clubs" (it's
a Harvard thing)
A final club is an exclusive undergraduate social club at Harvard College. The most prominent of these (and oldest, dating to 1791) are the traditionally all-male, exclusive final clubs. More recently, beginning in 1991, all-female final clubs, as well as fraternities and sororities along the lines of similar organizations found at many colleges and universities, have appeared. While a small number of these organizations have begun to admit both sexes, most do not—the reason, in general, that Harvard College refuses to recognize them.
But this isn't just going be a suggestion anymore, now there are actually going to be some consequences for students who join these groups:
In 2016, Harvard undertook to further marginalize organizations that, in the stated view of the administration, are "exclusionary and disempowering",[1] by barring members of unrecognized single-sex organizations from campus leadership positions and from receiving certain types of Harvard recommendation letters.
That last bit about not being allowed to receive "certain types of Harvard recommendation letters" means that those students would not be eligible to receive a Rhodes or Marshall scholarship. So the consequences are not merely symbolic or minor.
In reaction, some Harvard students are now protesting the decision:
http://www.wbur.org/2016/05/10/harvard- ... es-protest
Who is leading the protests? The fraternities or the male final clubs?
Dozens of students marched around Harvard Yard Monday, saying the move unfairly hurts Harvard women.
Shouting “Hear her Harvard,” the protesters — who were mostly women, many belonging to all-women final clubs or sororities — said Harvard’s restrictions would deprive women of spaces away from men.
The women say these spaces are necessary to foster self-confidence on a campus where they say men tend to be overbearing in class and disrespectful in social situations.
Sophomore Caroline Tervo told fellow protesters gender discrimination happens every single day at Harvard.
“In the classroom where men speak more than women, and on the weekend where women are targeted and shamed for their sexuality,” Tervo said. “On campus and in a society that is so male-dominated, female spaces are crucial sources of empowerment.”
The students are also protesting Harvard’s move against all-male final clubs and fraternities.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/media.wbur.org/ ... 20x455.jpg
First read about this here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html
Letter from Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust:
http://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2 ... anizations