Breaking Away

"MY CLUB IS A PLACE that I can call my own," says the president of the Fox Club, one of Harvard's exclusive all-male societies. "It's just a place to go to get away from Harvard."

If only that were true. In reality, the nine final clubs and the College are bound together in a complex web of connections--every one of which benefits the clubs directly, and discredits the College profoundly.

The catalogue of links between Harvard and the clubs is substantial. The University has owned and played taxes on the fenced-in, members only garden of the Fly Club for 27 years. All nine clubs are authorized to purchase Harvard's private list of alumni addresses, a privilege normally accorded only to official student groups. Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III helps coordinate the club's annual autumn selection process.

In addition, many clubs purchase steam and telephone lines from Harvard, in both cases at significant savings over market rates. The University generally sells these services only to direct affiliates.

The clubs' objectionable features are no less striking, born of a long tradition of resisting advances in social tolerance and enlightenment. They are the last undergraduate groups on campus whose admissions decisions are based entirely on how favorably candidates impress existing members socially. They include women by policy and--in many cases--minorities by practice. Their preoccupation with mysterious initiation rites, elaborate rules over outsiders' access, and general secrecy about their affairs encourage insularity and narrow-mindedness.

Harvard's links to the clubs are not only morally troubling, they run in direct violation of the College's explicit policy forbidding official support of student groups with discriminatory practices. All sanctioned student organizations must sign a statement that they forbid discrimination--a statement the clubs have not signed.

Moreover, according to several legal specialists, the links could be strong enough to jeopardize all of the University's federal funding (because of Education Act regulations prohibiting discrimination by federal grant recipients).

The University has the perfect opportunity right now to change its position on the final clubs: it has begun a review of its relationship to outside student organizations, prompted by a recent rash of injuries at a Pi Eta club initiation. Harvard has no excuse not to sever all its ties to the clubs with decisiveness and haste.

To make sure an action this important does not pass unnoticed, Harvard should annually publicize and explain its separation from the clubs in a forum like the Student Handbook. We hope such a statement would discourage undergraduates from investing their time and money in the clubs.

Before breaking away from the clubs completely, there is one short-term measure the University can take to mitigate one of the most egregious connections. As long as it continues to own part of the Fly's garden, the least it can do is to trumpet the fact that every member of the Harvard community is entitled to use the lawn by signing up with Epps or the Fly steward.