The Cultural Greek Life Dilemma

Last week, the University announced that two cultural Greek organizations targeted to African-Americans would remained unaffected by its sanctions on social groups. The University ostensibly did so because these groups — Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Kappa Alpha — have memberships that span multiple schools, and are therefore technically exempt from Harvard’s new sanctions regime.

However, the administration seems to be addressing these two organizations with a very tenuous line of logical reasoning. If Harvard truly believes that all social organizations that are gender-exclusive must go co-ed, then groups like Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Kappa Alpha must be sanctioned. There should certainly not be an exception merely because these groups have memberships that span multiple universities, and the distinction on this front between these groups and sanctioned Harvard sororities and fraternities with chapters at other universities is shaky.

If Harvard believes that social groups with an explicit cultural focus deserve special treatment in a way that groups that lack that focus do not, it should make that case and defend it. One possible defense would be that some organizations serve dual purposes. Perhaps Alpha Kappa Alpha and Alpha Phi Alpha are both social clubs and affinity groups.

Should the University make this argument, it should also clarify the role of other cultural social groups. For example, after the sanctions were announced, the cultural Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi became the gender-neutral Aleph last year. However, under this argument, that move might have been unnecessary.

The claim that it is Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Kappa Alpha’s multi-school membership that protects them from being sanctioned may also open a new loophole for clubs dealing with sanctions. Can any final club on campus simply admit a single non-Harvard student in order to become ineligible for sanctioning?

Ultimately, Harvard needs to make some type of decision. Instead of citing membership from multiple schools as the reason for the lack of sanctions, it should either recognize and accept these cultural social groups as is, or it should sanction these groups as unrecognized single-gender social organizations.

Any other course of action is insufficient. Indeed, any sort of special categorization of these cultural groups — in this case, groups with a focus on the black community — would otherize them in a peculiar way. The University should be able to discuss race openly. Unfortunately, it seems as though the University has seized upon any other reason to avoid having such a discussion.

If the University truly believes that its sanction policy is right as is, then it ought to stand by it and apply it fairly. However, if it believes that the sanctions do not provide sufficient protections for important cultural organizations, then it should state so explicitly and seek to change its policy.

This staff editorial is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.