Harvard's Policies Toward GLOs and social clubs
 

Clemsongirl shared this in the Colonies/Extensions thread, but I'm interested in discussing this in its own thread. What does everyone think?

Quote:
Originally Posted by clemsongirl
"Harvard Kappa Sigma has decided to go co-education in compliance with the university's new social group requirements and has disaffiliated from the national organization."

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/20...pa-sigma-coed/

I find this interesting. Given the amount of publicity and protest this generated, perhaps students interested in sorority/fraternity membership became less interested in Harvard:

"The new group prepares to recruit members as freshman interest in social groups may be on the decline: A survey distributed to the Class of 2021 by The Crimson found that only 27.6 percent of freshmen respondents said they were “somewhat” or “very interested” in joining fraternities, sororities or final clubs. Roughly 37 percent of the Class of 2020 and 41 percent of the Class of 2019 expressed interest in doing so in previous years of the survey."

And, I found this concerning and obviously more aggressive than the first policy change:

"Though going co-ed will exempt the KS from the current social group policy, the group could still be subject to sanction if the College moves forward with a proposal to ban all social groups from campus. A committee tasked with reevaluating the current policy put forward that recommendation in a preliminary draft this summer, and will release a final report later this month."

Yikes.

If the groups would rather go gender-neutral for progressive and respectful reasons, I can appreciate their self-governance and their right to do so. If these were attempts to placate the administration and save their social organizations from extinction, then it continues to feel like Harvard is being heavy-handed and infringing on students' rights to organize.
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Harvard and GLOs.
 

I'm an alumnus of Alpha Phi Omega. As a Community Service Fraternity, we've been nationally co-ed since 1976 and have had chapters at six of the eight Ivy League schools (currently two active). We have strong chapters in Boston (including MIT and BU) so the question of why we haven't tried to start a chapter at Harvard has come up from students *repeatedly*. We even have a very involved alumnus who *works* for Harvard.

However, Alpha Phi Omega *requires* school recognition to have a charter or to have a chapter (if the Dean of Students says no, at any point prior to or after chartering the chapter goes *poof*.) We've never felt comfortable with Harvard's policies, which while they have changed some over the years have never given us the level of stability that we've felt comfortable with.

The policies that Harvard is proposing in the future seem to go well beyond anti-single gender requirements making certain that a National Kappa Sigma or National Delta Gamma will be unwelcome (in the extreme) on campus, but would ensure that Alpha Delta Phi Society (or any co-ed Social GLO) also not be welcome.

Harvard is private. The students' Constitutional rights do not apply. Harvard is free to do whatever it wants with its Greek community up to and including disbanding it altogether as Alfred did a few years ago.

I don't like that the school threatens students who join with loss of privileges, like sponsorship for scholarships or sports captaincies. I also find it incredibly hypocritical that Harvard, of all schools, is leading the charge against social groups on the grounds that they're "exclusive". This has been ongoing for a while, so I'll find some news articles about it when I'm in class, but it does appear that Harvard wants Greek life and finals clubs of any gender composition to go the way of the dodo.

From a national standpoint, the defense of the single-sex rule is increasingly difficult. On the one hand, you have schools like Harvard (and this is rare) doing what they're doing. The more interesting discussion is re gender fluidity in single sex organizations.

When Dartmouth went coed, a few fraternities also went coed because in their minds, it was a natural progression. This isn't the case here, I believe.

I know that it's a private school and they can do whatever dumb thing they want, but I have a hard time seeing a school who reaches its tentacles even into what students do off campus as "good" or "prestigious."

I'm going to flip this back to another discussion that was had. Would we have thought less of Harvard or any Ivy League school if they had expelled a neo-nazi/KKK/white nationalist marcher in Charlottesville, Virginia?

I think any such marcher would be violating provisions of any school's Code of Conduct. I think a lot of public schools would probably be swift to expel such individuals regardless of the consequences in court. I know that the two OU SAEs who were expelled for that racist song on the party bus a couple years back accepted the consequences of their actions, though it's clear to me that they both have great cases against the school.

Unless they are meeting illegally or being violent, I'm not sure what code of conduct they would be disobeying. Free speech is free speech, no matter how repugnant. Unfortunately, students (and parents) seem to accept the erosion of that right with nary a peep. If you're talking about Cville specifically, where apparently the proper permits and such were not obtained and violence egged on, that's a different matter.

If off campus GLOs are prohibited, what's next? Political organizations? Activities espousing a goal someone in the college administration might not like, no matter how benign it is?

As Kevin has noted, free speech as a "right"—in the sense of the First Amendment—is pretty much irrelevant at a private school like Harvard. It's the government that can't infringe on a person's free speech rights. Students at a public university can potentially claim that the university, as an arm of the government, has violated their free speech rights. Students at a private university don't have much in the way of free speech rights that the university is legally required to recognize, so private universities can, through their codes of conduct, prohibit speech deemed hateful, disrespectful or repugnant.

Yep. If Harvard wants to give the Federalist Society the boot from campus for not liking the cut of its jib, it is free to do so.

We're not talking about getting the boot from campus - we're talking about things individual students do that are nowhere near campus.

Harvard could boot individual students too for off-campus conduct if it wanted. Princeton threatens any first-year student who tries to join a Greek organization or any other student who tries to "solicit" them with suspension. Relevant quote from here:

Any violation of this policy will be regarded as a serious matter. A student who engages in solicitation, as defined above, should expect to be suspended. A freshman who joins, pledges, or rushes a fraternity or sorority should expect to be suspended. A freshman who attends or participates in any other activity or event sponsored by a fraternity or sorority may be subject to a lesser penalty (e.g., disciplinary probation). All relevant facts and circumstances will be taken into account in determining the appropriate penalty.

There's precedent for Ivy League institutions to restrict student behavior this much. They're not on par with the wackadoodle religious schools that have staff members policing the bars near campus to catch students drinking alcohol (looking at you, Liberty University), but they're on the same track.

Harvard is certainly attempting to set a trend - I don't think it'll spread too far out of the Northeast or "Left Coast."

To be honest I think that the only true solution to this is for fraternities and sororities to assert their right to exist outside of the confines of university recognition. Almost none of the roughly hundred social GLOs have made any legitimate arguments outside of press releases from their umbrella groups.

Colleges & Universities need to enforce student behavior, not 5-30 folks in a headquarters hundreds or thousands of miles away. Penn State is taking some steps to do that, but is unfortunately still focused on organizational behavior.

Unfortunately, all this may do is turn these social clubs back into secret societies. Hazing, elitism and substance abuse will be further underground than they already are. (REACH Act may make it even worse).

All just an opinion. . .

Not sure that it will spread *that* far on the west coast. I can only think of two private schools with significant national standing: USC and Stanford. (So I think in terms of football, sue me)

If you're going to war, best to pick a battleground you can win on. Private universities can absolutely forbid students from belonging to Greek organizations, political parties or drum circles. They can completely regulate student behavior because the students' association with that university is optional and voluntary.

This Penn State situation might present a better opportunity for FSL organizations to establish some legal precedent as to what public schools can and can't get away with. Case law surrounding free association isn't as deep as you'd want it to be before initiating litigation though. I can think of arguments in favor the school which aren't horrible arguments..

As I said in a previous post, Penn State is going to feel really silly when the numbers of non-Greek local social orgs go through the roof and a few more are created - and freshmen join them right away.

Penn State has a few levers by which they might exert control. They might collaborate with municipal government to zone Greek housing out of existence, i.e., require orgs to be in good standing with the University to be able to operate the sort of facilities FSL houses operate as. They might even try to limit students' ability to join organizations by penalizing them for doing so. There are arguments which can be made, i.e., that the school is regulating the Greek Community because it has a duty to promote the health, safety and welfare of its students and that there is real data showing that alcohol abuse, sexual assault, etc., go along with FSL organizations.

No one has had that fight in court of which I am aware, and that's because neither side is sure of the outcome.

That's what I said - if they place all these restrictions on fraternities and sororities non-Greek "social groups" (recognized and underground) will spring up like weeds.

And those that already exist will see a surge in interest. From my understanding, the Business Fraternities at Penn State are enjoying a historically high number of candidates for membership this semester since freshmen have this option but don't have IFC/Panhel options.

The behaviors that the PSU administration is trying to suppress with their sanctions will not disappear. They have just moved to a new venue.

It'll be interesting to see how business honors fraternities will handle hazing and drug use investigations. I'm sure they have lots of experience with that. They should be fine.

Ran across this article about Harvard's move to implement its new final clubs policy. Typically Harvard:

https://harvardmagazine.com/2017/11/...nal-clubs-vote

^ What 33girl said. So you'll end up with a bunch of "social groups" that are not only not regulated by the university (aside from the university saying "If we find out you're a member we're going to (e.g.) expel you"), but also not regulated by any national office. Oh, yes, I'm sure that'll work out reeeeeeally well. </sarcasm>

On a different note, I noticed from that article that Harvard's chapter of AEPi has done the same thing. I wonder if they've managed to attract Jewish female new members as a result? I'm not finding any information on how their fall recruitment went. To the best of my knowledge, there are no historically Jewish sororities at Harvard - AEPhi has never had a chapter there.

Like Trilogy, the renegade ex-Tri Delta chapter.

Two questions:
1) Where do we get that the Business Honoraries would get included in this?
2) I'm curious as to the most significant hazing charge leveled against such a group?

It happens...
https://akpsi.org/virginia-tech-chap...ed-for-hazing/

Thanx :(

Can you explain what you mean by this part? Isn't a student's association with any university optional and voluntary?

Poorly worded on my part. The point is that private universities can absolutely regulate any student behavior because they are not state run and subject to Constitutional limitations such as being forbidden from punishing speech, allowing students to freely associate, etc. A private university can absolutely wipe out FSL organizations and no one can challenge them. They can punish students for associating with private off campus groups as well.

FSL organizations at public schools can of course lose recognition, but if that chapter wants to operate in an off campus capacity, there is nothing the school can do to stop them. The public university cannot punish students for their off campus associations. FSL organizations at public universities always have a nuclear option at their disposal. They can simply ignore the university knowing that the worst the school can do is withdraw university recognition. If that action is meaningless to the national organization or if the chapter doesn't care what the national organization says (they can always go local), the worst that can happen, again, is loss of recognition.

Loss of recognition from the university may mean loss of the ability to utilize campus facilities in the group's name and/or participation in structured FSL events. There may be some local consequences such as the loss of the ability to use the chapter facility due to potential FSL zoning issues which affect some municipalities.

I wonder if the issue is complicated by the fact that students are essentially paying "customers" of these private universities and may have some exercisable consumer rights to push back against schools' absolute right of regulation.

My thoughts either way are that Greeks should seek to work with their universities, but knowing full well that Greek Life has a lot of leverage. Schools need Greek orgs because at the most fundamental level we enhance the college & learning experience, and in turn play a role in attracting & retaining students, giving back (at a higher rate than non-Greeks) after graduation, bolstering athletics revenue, providing housing and what not. Having an organized Greek System with an IFC, etc. also mitigates underground university-affiliated groups from going way off the rails and putting the school at legal or publicity risk. All the stuff you all know already.

But I bring it up because it seems that more chapters are eager to play hardball and disaffiliate from a college (or nationals) and going rogue. At least it seems like an idea that has been gaining popularity. While it may seem like an attractive option -- no rules! self-governance! maximum fun! -- the potential downside can be so risky. Kevin mentioned several, like zoning changes, facilities use and participation in sanctioned events. Another is how local law enforcement could come down on rogue GLO's.

Years ago, a family friend has a son who was a member of a fraternity that went its own way. As I understand it things were great at first but after complaints began piling up the police went after the group as a criminal gang (locals were also trying to get them prosecuted as a cult but that didn't work) that resulted in incarceration and attempted seizure of assets from the fraternity. Yes, this may be a bit of an extreme case and the degree of enforcement varies by state and municipality but point being that having a university there to take the brunt of these sorts of things can be a real benefit. Not that I need to tell any of you this, but I wish chapters would understand that the structure and processes are a double edged sword for both enforcement and their protection. Going rogue should really be a Hail Mary last option.

Students of private universities absolutely have rights as consumers to consume their education elsewhere. The school can't discriminate based upon race, sex, religion, nationality, and in most places, sexual orientation. Aside from that, those universities are only subject to whatever requirements of federal law are in place to allow said schools to be eligible to receive student loan disbursements.

Disaffiliating doesn't have to have all of the negative risk management implications and with any quality national group, disaffiliation would come with concerned and careful supervision by the HQ and local alumni. In most of the cases where you have disaffiliation it is done specifically because the organization doesn't want to follow rules imposed by the school or interfraternal community. Those rules are probably in most cases dealing with drugs, alcohol and hazing.

When the school or IFC, however, ups that ante and instead of just proscribing, hazing, drugs and underage drinking, they proscribe gatherings of three or more members, pledging and initiation activities and any kind of organized activities of any time, unless we're talking about that only being for a short period of time as it looks to be in these recent examples, we may experience a crossing of the Rubicon in that chapters aren't disaffiliating in order to engage in risky conduct, but rather they are disaffiliating to engage in some--any--kind of conduct. If the school presents the option of disaffiliation or relinquishing recognition, the later seems to be the safer bet.

And the police aren't going to start coming after you as if you are gang unless you are actually acting as a gang. Disaffiliation doesn't necessarily have to include going off the rails and in fact the same institutional safeguards which keep most chapters from hazing or having other issues can still remain in place and work well without help from the university.

Alpha Phi along with the Harvard Collegiate Panhellenic wrote this response:
https://alphaphi.org/Portals/0/Press...t%20121217.pdf

DaffyKD

GREAT letter! I'm really glad to see these sororities stick up for the benefits we offer and the values we share, and recognize our historical foundations.

Harvard's Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter is not a signatory of the letter, but it doesn't look like they've closed the chapter-the Krimson Kappa Facebook page is still active. A news article from September said the local chapter was exploring closing down pending the final outcome of the policy. Does anyone know what their status is?

Nationals released a statement today that Eta Theta chapter will not be participating in recruitment this year, but does not say anything else about the chapter’s status. The full statement is here: https://www.kappakappagamma.org/Kapp...d=3633&id=5701

The Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter at Harvard has reportedly disaffiliated from their national organization to form a co-ed group called " Fleur-de-Lis".

https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/40747/

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2...ender-neutral/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ndM/story.html

Alpha Phi, Delta Gamma and Kappa Alpha Theta have chosen to continue their recruitment of freshmen women.

The notion that these women's groups believe they get to exist, but that they don't seem to have a dog in the hunt as to whether men's groups get to exist is amazingly hypocritical. Yes, women's groups are being punished essentially for the action of men's groups--but much to the same extent that innocent men's groups are being punished to the same extent that guilty men's groups are being punished.

"All for one - and every man for himself." - The Black Adder circa 1490.

These groups (and others) have apparently made a rational calculation based on the fact that the sanctions imposed will impact only a very small percentage of students.

The women's groups are explaining the benefit they provide to women on campus; I don't see why they should have to defend all single-sex organizations just so that women can meet.