BOSTON — A proposal at Harvard University would ban all fraternities, sororities and single-gender clubs starting in fall 2018, a measure that’s largely aimed at the school’s exclusive, all-male social clubs that have been blamed for problems with sexual assault and alcohol abuse.
The recommendation was announced Wednesday by a faculty committee that was created in March to examine the school’s rules surrounding single-gender clubs and suggest improvements. The final decision on any change now falls to Harvard President Drew Faust.
In its 22-page report, the committee said it hopes to create an environment where clubs “cease to have a pernicious influence on undergraduate life.”
“In order to move beyond the gendered and exclusive club system that has persisted – and even expanded – over time, a new paradigm is needed,” the committee wrote, “one that is rooted in an appreciation of diversity, commitment to inclusivity and positive contributions to the social experience for all students.”
For years, Harvard’s administration has sought to crack down on secretive all-male social clubs that are known on campus as “final clubs.” They include a handful of groups that have been around for decades, including the Porcellian Club, which dates to the 18th century and counts President Theodore Roosevelt among its past members.
But the faculty committee said those clubs are a product of their times and “due to their resistance to change over the decades, they have lapsed into products behind their time.”
A separate Harvard committee reported in March that members of the clubs have “deeply misogynistic attitudes” and a “sense of sexual entitlement.” A school survey found that 47 percent of female seniors who interacted socially with the clubs had experienced non-consensual sexual contact during college.
