National Fraternity CEO Denounces College Policy

The president of a national umbrella group for several Harvard fraternities condemned Wednesday the College's decision to be more lenient with all-female groups in the enforcement of penalties on members of single-gender groups.

In an interview earlier this week, Associate Dean of Student Life David R. Friedrich discussed a “bridge” program that would allow Harvard’s all-female final clubs and sororities to retain their “gender focus” for at least three years. Membership in other single-gender groups will be penalized beginning with the Class of 2021.

His comments have drawn the ire of the national leaders of some Greek organizations.

“Harvard’s decision to allow only women’s groups to continue operating as single-gender organizations affirms why we must.... aggressively defend students’ rights,” North-American Interfraternity Conference President and CEO Judson Horras wrote in his statement.

Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority member Elly Duker '19 marched with her mother, Julie Starr-Duker '82, at the #HearHerHarvard protest against sanctions against unrecognized single-gender social organizations last May. By Thomas W. Franck

In a separate statement, Dani Weatherford, the executive director of the National Panhellenic Conference—a national umbrella group for sororities—wrote that while the group is “cautiously optimistic about this shift in posture regarding women’s organizations, it’s clear that significant questions remain—most immediately for men’s groups.”

“Ultimately, we do not view support for single-gender organizations and progress toward greater inclusion as mutually exclusive concepts,” Weatherford wrote.

Friedrich said that the committee tasked with implementing the College’s penalties against single-gender social groups had agreed that all-female groups needed to be distinguished from their all-male counterparts due to historic inequalities facing women at the College.

“There’s value in continuing to support gender-focused organizations among those groups that have been historically women’s organizations,” Friedrich said, though he qualified that gender-focused missions must exist simultaneously with “substantive advancement toward full inclusion.”

Horras took a different view.

“Harvard’s original policy trampled students’ association rights, and it now serves as a blatant form of gender discrimination,” he wrote, adding that it “must be vigorously challenged.”

In an emailed statement, Friedrich responded to the statements from Horras and Weatherford. “Harvard College’s educational mission is rooted in a residential learning model that does not support a Greek system,” he wrote.

He added, however, that the College “[welcomes] opportunities to discuss with students how social organizations can help create an inclusive social environment for undergraduates.”

Days after the historic policy—which, starting with the Class of 2021, will bar members of single-gender social groups from team captaincies, fellowships, and leadership positions—was announced in May 2016, hundreds of Harvard women protested what they described as the policy’s unfair targeting of women’s groups.

This is not the first time Horras and Weatherford have commented on the sanctions.

In a joint statement with several other umbrella groups for national Greek organizations, Horras and Weatherford wrote in May 2016 that while they largely agreed with Harvard’s aim of “creating a safe and equitable environment for students,” they believe that Harvard “mistakenly assumes the way to achieve those ends is to punish students for participating in single-gender organizations.”

Four of Harvard’s five local fraternity chapters—Sigma Chi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon—are affiliated with the North-American Interfraternity Conference.

All four of Harvard’s local sorority chapters—Alpha Phi, Delta Gamma, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Kappa Kappa Gamma—are affiliated with the National Panhellenic Conference.

—Staff writer Derek G. Xiao can be reached at derek.xiao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekgxiao.