Harvard Considering Banning Historic Social Clubs

Decision would affect one whose ranks once included Bill Gates.

July 13, 2017 5:13 pm
Harvard Faculty Recommend Phasing Out Social Clubs
The exterior of the Fox Club at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., July 5, 2017. The finals club has decided to eliminate the provisional memberships that allowed women to join. (Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Harvard University’s clubs could be getting a final curtain call soon.

According to The Harvard Crimson, a faculty committee released a 22-page report Wednesday, recommending that the university ban students from participating in on-campus “fraternities, sororities, and similar organizations”—and phase all of them out by 2022.

The report does notes that “all currently enrolled students including those who will matriculate this fall will be exempt from the new policy for the entirety of their time at Harvard.”

This comes on the heels of news that one of the university’s oldest final clubs, the Fox Club, would expel its provisional female members and retain its all-male status (their door is pictured at the top). Member ranks have such names as Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, and a former king of Nepal.

As the Crimson notes, the resultant report wasn’t a split decision by faculty; it was years in the making and marked the prevailing opinion that the on-campus influence of single-gender social groups should be curbed.

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