Playboy Subscription Sparks Furor at N.Y. Harvard Club

Playboy magazine has become part of the latest controversy surrounding the prestigious Harvard Club of New York.

Members of the Club have complained that the magazine, which is available to members in the club's basement barber shop, is an inappropriate purchase for the club.

The club is open to all dues-paying Harvard alumni and began allowing women to join in 1973.

According to Steven L. Singer '57, the club's house committee chair, members have never voiced concern about the magazine before. In fact, Singer said the club has subscribed to the magazine for many years.

"No women have raised the issue," he said. "No one has ever complained."

Josselyn G. Simpson '88, a vice-president of the club, said that ever since members became aware of the magazine's presence in the club's barber shop, female members have spoken up to oppose spending further club dues on Playboy.

"There is a general concern that it is inappropriate for a club with a growing women's membership," she said.

Other members see the push to remove the magazine as an attempt to censure the reading of the club's male membership.

According to Singer, some members have said that removing the magazine would be tantamount to "an abridgement of the First Amendment."

President Peter S. Heller '48 said most complaints voiced to him about the magazine were from members who objected to removing it from the barber shop.

"Some people are bothered by the censorship issues," he said. "Some people would object to Commentary or Cosmopolitan if we had those in the barber shop."

Because of the nature of the services provided by the barber shop, Simpson said it is an almost exclusively all-male environment.

Singer said the issue falls under the jurisdiction of the club's House Committee and will be discussed at a future meeting of the committee, possibly as early as the committee's meeting today.

"We're a small club," he said about the club's 10,000-member membership. "When somebody gets upset, we try to respond."

Singer stressed that the issue is not one of primary concern to the committee.

"It'll fit in between deciding on the budget and discussing the squash courts," he said. "It's one of many things we're discussing."

Heller said he expects the committee to make the final decision for the Club.

"Sooner or later, we'll work our way through this," he said.

However, Simpson said the conflict has raised the larger issue of whether men still dominate the club.

"It might tell us a little bit about the strength of the old boy's network--that it's stronger then I wish it were," she said. "I think it would be an indication that the club needs to do much more to make the club open to women."

Simpson said women have become more welcome at the club in recent years. She noted that many leadership positions at the club, whose membership is 16 percent female, are held by women.

In addition, Simpson said a Women's Task Force has been established to help women feel more comfortable at the club.

Simpson said she is unsure what the committee's decision will be but remains confident that the club will continue its efforts to welcome female members.

"Women are becoming quite well integrated into the club," she said. "No matter what happens, I think the club will remain an open environment."