Stanford Halts Club Dues Subsidies

In response to recent protests by students and some faculty members, Stanford University will discontinue its policy of subsidizing dues for faculty and staff who are members of area social Clubs, including San Francisco's all-male Bohemian Club, administrators said this week.

The new policy, which was recommended by Stanford's Administrative Council earlier this year, was approved March 3 by Stanford President Donald Kennedy. Administrators would not comment on the amount of the 30 subsidies to 20 faculty members affected by the change.

Three of the 13 clubs involved are all-male, but, because the names of most of the clubs were never made public, it is undetermined whether any of the three all-female clubs in the area are affected, said Robert Freelen, Stanford's vice president for public affairs.

The furor began last fall after the controversial Bohemian Club for the first time made available a list of its members, which included several Stanford faculty members.

In the past, "Herbert Hoover and most of the Presidents since, George Schultz, and the heads of major corporations" have been members of the Bohemian Club, according to an aide at the Stanford News Service.

In December 1987, 63 of the 125 female members of the Stanford faculty signed an open letter urging the university to end the subsidies on grounds that the Bohemian Club discriminates against women, said Maryanne Seawell of the Stanford News Service.

The letter stated that "such a policy offends basic values to which this university is officially committed...The exclusion of women by 'private' clubs carries public consequences."

"The mayor of San Francisco, [Dianne Feinstein], a Stanford graduate, attends such clubs while visiting public officials in other cities," Seawell said. "She couldn't invite them to lunch reciprocally at the Bohemian Club."

In addition to charging gender discrimination, Stanford undergraduates have questioned the Bohemian Club's treatment of its workers. After ties between Stanford and the Bohemian Club were made public, "some students joined with unionized workers who were protesting conditions at the Bohemian Club," Seawell said.

But the new policy is not intended to discourage faculty and staff members from joining these social clubs, Kennedy said in a press release. "Stanford is and should be hesitant about regulating the choices of individual members of its community."

Students have charged that positions in the Stanford administration carry ex officio memberships in certain clubs, said Freelen. But he added that the Administrative Council did not formulate its policy with reference to specific clubs.

"The university itself has no institutional arrangement with the clubs," according to the Kennedy press release.

Stanford has no undergraduate clubs of the type affected by the withdrawal of subsidies, Freelen said. "We have co-ed eating clubs, and some of the residential fraternities are local and have gone co-ed," he said. Stanford also has chapters of national single-sex fraternities and sororities, Freelan said.