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Harvard announced last week that students — starting with the class of 2017 — who belong to sororities, fraternities or single-sex final clubs, won’t be able to lead athletic teams or other student organizations. Opponents of these new rules raised the possibility of challenging the university in court on the grounds that Harvard has violated the right to free association.
The school also said it will not allow said students to apply for certain scholarships that require the dean’s endorsement, such as the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. These new rules invoked major campus protests and criticisms from the civil rights group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
“Harvard’s decision simply demonstrates that it is willing to sacrifice students’ basic freedom of association to the whims of whoever occupies the administrative suites today,” FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate said in a statement.
Students marched around Harvard Yard last Monday, saying the move “unfairly hurts Harvard women”. They shouted : “Hear her Harvard”. The protesters were mostly composed of women, many belonging to all-women final clubs or sororities, claiming that these restrictions would deprive women of spaces away from men.
Harvard College spokesperson Rachael Dane recognized the opposition to the college’s move, but said Harvard had also received massive support from members of final clubs. She added: “We continue to believe that gender discrimination has no place on Harvard’s campus.”
“[L]itigation is certainly not off the table,” Richard Porteus Jr., the graduate board president of the Fly Club, told The New York Times. Experts claim a legal challenge against Harvard “would have to clear a high hurdle”: Harvard University is a private institution. Therefore, the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment protections, such as the freedom of association, don’t apply.