Delphic and Bee Clubs’ Three-Year Marriage Ends

The co-ed Delphic-Bee Club will split into the all-male Delphic Club and the all-female Bee Club three years after merging, according to club affiliates.

The graduate and undergraduate leaderships of both clubs announced the decision in an August 25 email to undergraduate members and alumni, according to two club affiliates to whom The Crimson granted anonymity to discuss confidential internal emails.

The divorce comes one month after Harvard dropped its controversial sanctions policy targeting members of single-gender social groups.

The email stated that the leaderships of the Delphic and the Bee mutually decided not to extend the agreement they reached in 2017 to share membership and a clubhouse at 9 Linden St., which historically housed the Delphic Club. Though they shared a clubhouse, the Delphic and Bee conducted punch — the process whereby final clubs select new members — separately during their short-lived merger.

Bee undergraduate president Kristina E. Jacobsson ’21 declined to comment on behalf of the Club for this article. The trustees of the Delphic — Guilliaem “Rusty” Aertsen IV ’70, Lief D. Rosenblatt ’74, and Sanjay H. Patel ’83 — did not respond to requests for comment. It remains unclear where the Bee will hold events in future semesters.

The two clubs’ 2017 merger coincided with the debut of the College’s sanctions policy, which came into effect with the Class of 2021. The sanctions prevented members of single-gender social organizations from receiving College endorsement for fellowships or holding sports captaincies and leadership positions in extracurricular groups. The policy provoked vehement opposition, including twin lawsuits in state and federal court.

The sanctions proved short-lived, though, and the Delphic-Bee’s split came one month after Harvard rolled back its policy. Announcing the reversal, University President Lawrence S. Bacow wrote that Harvard believed it would lose its lawsuit in federal court and would therefore be legally barred from enforcing the sanctions.

The Delphic and Bee’s leaderships did not address the sanctions policy directly in their email, though.

They instead characterized the clubs’ three-year-long union as positive. But ultimately, their missives went on to say, both clubs believed they would better serve their members as separate organizations.

—Staff writer Ema R. Schumer can be reached at ema.schumer@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @emaschumer.