Final Clubs: A Curious Target for Reformist Zeal

For rather more than a year the Crimson has reported and supported a campaign, first to dissociate the College from the Final Clubs and, now, to persuade students that membership in them is dishonorable. Given the modest role of the Clubs in the life of the College, they seem a curious target for such sustained reformist zeal. It is hard to resist the suspicion that a pinch of self-righteousness and a dollop of envy are amongst the campaigners' motivations.

A recent salvo was fired by Mr. Evan O. Grossman '87 in his 25 November opinion piece, "Think Hard."

"Almost everything that final clubs stand for runs counter to the foundations and purpose of Harvard University. The clubs stand for bigotry over plurality, secrecy over openness, hedonism over moderation and selfishness over community concern. The clubs divide the community, separating a group which perceives itself as a social elite from the vast majority of their fellow undergraduates."

Bigotry! Secrecy! Hedonism! Selfishness! Such an indictment prompts visions of constant, scandalous misbehavior on the part of the Clubbies. Yet Grossman's summary of their beastliness includes only the charge that the Clubs hold "elaborate parties;" fly "punchees" to Atlantic City; serve "over priced dinners;" organize dances characterized as "bimbo" parties; "have reportedly used prostitutes" at some events; and are rumored to conduct "hazing ceremonies which are disgusting at best and hazardous at worst."

Of course, the Clubs are self-perpetuating male social organizations and the fact of their excluding women prompts suspicion, nowadays. But, in most circles, that unfashionable behavior (the basis, I presume, for the charge of bigotry) is seldom criticized as other than anomalous so long as there is no reason to think non-members suffer serious harm. Grossman says nothing to explain the secrecy he finds objectionable. The Clubs' self-proclaimed social purpose is enough, apparently to assure him of their "hedonism" and "selfishness."

But it is the attractiveness of money and status, irresistible to many of his fellows, that really offends Grossman. "To truly reform the Clubs one would have to eliminate the displays of wealth and symbols of superiority which constitute the clubs' main appeal." What an extraordinary argument from one who remains a Harvard student, hates bigotry and lauds plurality. Safely ensconced as a member of one of the wealthiest and most exclusive institutions in the world, Mr. Grossman insists it is the Clubs' display of similar attributes that offends his moral sensibilities. He is not alone in this apparent contradiction. It is striking how many Harvard-Radcliffe students share his need to pay lip service to anti-elitism. Something about the times has persuaded large numbers of otherwise sensible people that the right and proper price for privilege (earned or unearned) is guilt, and that one's guiltiness can be simultaneously displayed and exorcised by public opposition to anything labeled elitist. (Fortunately, few Harvard-Radcliffe students actually feel the guilt they think they should; most are too healthy and sensible for that; but they seem unable to work out a satisfying rationale for enjoying themselves; and thus are easy prey for Neo-Puritans.)

To reprise for those who've not been following the story: The Final Clubs are to Harvard what fraternities are to other colleges, with the important difference that fewer than 10 percent of undergraduates join. Though each of the nine Clubs owns its premises, in which like-minded males socialize and dine together once or twice a week, none provides student living quarters. Their association with the College began in 1791 with the founding of the Porcellian and their social role has waxed and waned, its importance steadily diminshing since the building of the Houses in the 1930's. The latter (which are, as was intended, the elite amongst college dorms) were conceived and constructed by President Lowell in part to break the power of the Clubs. He succeeded and, in the present era, many students become aware of the Clubs only when those who resent Clubbies sound the tocsin.

The campaign that Evan Grossman joins began last winter when the Committee on College Life recommended that the University divorce itself from the Clubs if they refused to admit women. Even the metropolitan press showed mild interest. Before the issue was finally joined, however, the Clubs acted unilaterally to sever the ties. (Which consisted, apparently, of access to alumni mailing lists and the privilege of renting phones and buying heat through the University. Plus, according to a recent re-run of old revelations, the Fly Club's use of a strip of university land as part of its "members' only" garden.) Henceforth, thanks largely to the watch-and-ward Committee, Harvard College will have no formal relationship with its ancient Final Clubs.

One of the things I've most admired about Harvard, since immigrating from the University of Chicago a quarter century ago, is its cultural diversity. (The same "plurality" that Mr. Grossman invokes as a Harvard virtue, even as he urges reducing it by eliminating the Clubs.) Though Chicago was more than Harvard's match in openness to differing ideas, it seemed to me culturally homogeneous. I've perceived imperial Harvard as more at ease; old enough, rich enough, secure enough--able, somehow--to celebrate a variety of lifestyles. The easy acceptance, by the community, of widely differing styles has served to enhance all of them; people may be and do, as well as think, very different things and still be valued in this world. In too many institutions deviations from a common mode appear (even to the deviant) as failures to adapt.

To me also, the fact that all choices were not equally open simply increased the richness of the mix. Commencement Day at Harvard (the very archetype of an occasion now celebrated nationwide), is always a trifle lonely for this non-alumnus. Though a member of the Faculty, I sense my exclusion from valued aspects of those Festival Rites. Not being to that manor born, I will be forever outside a club I admire and respect. My status is an accident of circumstance and, during a particular day in June, I occasionally regret the circumstance. But I neither resent, nor would I tamper with, the privileges attendant on being a member of the Class of whatever. Similarly for a variety of other "clubs" comprising the Harvard fabric. Nowadays, the exclusive character of most is premised on members sharing some particular skill--athletic, scholarly, artistic.

But not all. The exclusivity of the Final Clubs is based more on chance than on any special merit common to the members. (As, to some extent, is membership in Harvard College itself; residence in a sparsely populated state distinguishes many a successful applicant from Great Neck peers consigned to the Other Place.) Those chances once included being of the right sex, income bracket, family, race, and religion. Now only one circumstance remains sine qua non. As the luck of being born female is prerequisite to becoming a Cliffie, that of being born male is necessary to becoming a Clubbie.

In neither case do those excluded have ground for serious complaint, unless sexual discrimination is wrong, intrinsically, a proposition hard to defend at Harvard, whose sister, Radcliffe, frankly discriminates against males. (Harvard considers students enrolled in Radcliffe to "be enrolled, in accordance with present practice, in Harvard College with all the rights and privileges accorded Harvard College enrollment;" Radcliffe is not so generous. So, the Radcliffes are Harvard, but the Harvards aren't Radcliffes.)

Few, including members, will argue that membership in the Clubs is central to life at Harvard today. I have yet to encounter a student who felt his College career wasted for lack of membership in a Club, though some, no doubt suffer mild disappointment. The possibility of belonging simply leavens the loaf for those eligible and interested, while inflicting little harm on any interested but ineligible. In treating the matter otherwise, I believe that the College has erred, confusing licit discrimination with that which is properly abjured.

Some individuals insist any discrimination is wrong, as witness Jeanne Wirka, president of the Radcliffe Union of Students, quoted in the January-February 1985 issue of Harvard Magazine: "The problem with clubs is that they are denigrating to the outgroup in general. It's too bad that the issue has become 'should the clubs admit women?' The point is that the clubs should exclude everybody [sic]--they simply shouldn't be here, and Harvard shouldn't have anything to do with them." Jake Stevens '86, a member of the Committee on College Life, puts it less broadly, "The Committee acts under the assumption that no College group may discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation or physical disability," quickly adding that it occasionally grants some exemptions. (I think at once of the physical disability--weight 112 pounds--that excluded me from the football team I yearned to join in my youth.)

Something like the beliefs expressed by Grossman, Wirka and Stevens are widely shared by students today, but not universally, and I wonder that Harvard should impose those of Stevens on everyone. (If, indeed, it was prepared to do so had not the Clubs, with fine aristocratic disdain, withdrawn from the arena. In the event, former Dean of the College, John Fox, whom the Committee advises, was spared by the necessity of tipping his hand.) Is it not sufficient that the Committee on College Life have opportunity to persuade? Even as I would hope to persuade Harvard, other universities and the government that they should outlaw discrimination, not as a matter of principle, but only when necessary to protect those discriminated against from serious harm.

There is positive good to be had in preserving the freedom of Blacks, Hispanics, Catholics, Jews, men and women--even WASPS--to organize on the basis of their shared characteristic, so long as their association does no great damage to those excluded. As, for instance, in the asymmetry between Harvard and Radcliffe; the men lose a few perquisites available to the women, but nothing of vital interest; the women, Radcliffe authorities (rather more than Radcliffe students) insist, profit greatly. Our national social history gives us plentiful reason to look askance at such groupings, but our political heritage should insulate us from the mistake of failing to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate forms of free association.

There is, of course, ample room for honest disagreement as to when the harm done by individuals acting freely outweighs that done by restricting their freedom. But, it's always a trade-off, and if the restrictions serve no purpose except that of imposing majority values on a minority (as seems the case with the Clubs), we sell freedom cheap by accepting them.

Underlying the parochial argument, I believe, lies a basic disagreement about the meaning of liberalism that extends far beyond the bounds of Harvard College. I've thought "liberal" to imply a society that maximizes (culturally, legally and economically) each member's freedom to live as he or she wishes. But many who call themselves liberals today interpret their mission as that of imposing a particular set of values on all. In that regard, they differ only in the particulars from the Moral Majority and are distinctly ill-liberal according to my understanding of the word.

No society can exist, of course, without placing some restrictions on its members, and it's also true, no doubt, that the list must lengthen as economies become more complex and citizens more interdependent. But, recognition of that necessity, coupled with the original liberal premise that the state exists to maximize the real freedom of its members, should make us the more loathe to accept any limitation that is not essential to preserving some good greater than liberty.

In the instant case, it is difficult to see that any such concern has entered Harvard's calculus. Its authorities must believe that freedom of association is a good. They clearly believe that equal opportunity is a good. To impose membership rules on the Final Clubs is to sacrifice the former. Not to impose them is to sacrifice the latter. But (pace Clubbies) the worth of the opportunity lost to those discriminated against doesn't come close to outweighing the value--to all who would be free--of letting the Clubs do as they will.

E.L. Pattullo is a senior lecturer on Psychology and director of Harvard's Center for the Behavioral Sciences.