All-Female Harvard Social Groups May Keep ‘Gender Focus’ for at Least Three Years

The Harvard Crimson reports:

Traditionally all-female final clubs and sororities will be allowed to retain their “gender focus” for the next few years—and potentially beyond that period—while complying with the College’s policy penalizing single-gender social groups, according to Associate Dean of Student Life David R. Friedrich.

In an interview Tuesday, Friedrich clarified the details of a three to five year “bridge” program for all-female social organizations proposed by a committee tasked with implementing the College’s penalties against single-gender social groups.

In a report released on March 6, the committee wrote that it “supports the idea of continuing to allow the female final clubs and sororities to operate with gender focused missions, with the understanding that the positive contributions of those organizations to the campus community would be assessed in three to five years.”

Having accepted nearly all of the committee’s recommendations, including the proposed bridge program, Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana wrote in a College-wide email that he agreed that historical inequalities faced by women at the College may require additional resources to aid all-female groups in transitioning into “inclusive organizations.”

Harvard in a nutshell: female only clubs good: men only clubs very bad.