世界のトップランクグループにいつも顔を出すハーバード大学。そのグループには日本の東大は入っていない。卒業生が世界を動かす大学だからこそ、その責任感や義務感も存在する。共和国アメリカを象徴する民主主義の理想を説き、広めたり、守ったり、その理想の実現のために、アメリカの大学の役割は大きい。大学の長い歴史や伝統を変える勇気と、そして現代にマッチした新たな伝統を築き上げようとする英知。凡人はそうした行為を高く評価する。
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Harvard Restrictions Could Reshape Exclusive Student Clubs, U.S.A
By STEPHANIE SAULMAY 6, 2016 The New York Times
Photo=Harvard University is imposing new restrictions on single-gender clubs, including all-male final clubs. Credit Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times
The all-male final clubs at Harvard University have long been bastions of money, power and privilege. But on Friday, 225 years after the oldest club was founded, the university announced restrictions on the organizations that could ultimately be their undoing, or at least drastically change their character by forcing them to become coed.
Starting with the class that enters Harvard in fall 2017, members of single-gender clubs will be prohibited from holding leadership positions on campus, according to a statement released by the university’s president, Drew G. Faust. Members will also be barred from receiving the official recommendations required for prestigious postgraduate fellowships and scholarships, such as the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships, the statement said.
The new rules will apply not only to the six male final clubs, but also to other single-gender organizations, including five women’s final clubs and nine sororities and fraternities. An estimated 30 percent of undergraduates at Harvard belong to such clubs. Two other formerly male final clubs have already voted to admit women.
Two months ago, a sexual assault task force said the final clubs raised “serious concerns” that required attention from Harvard. Surveys conducted for the university, as well as interviews with undergraduate women, had found that some final clubs fostered an atmosphere of misogyny, sexual misconduct and entitlement.
Harvard is not the first university to take action against single-gender clubs. Fraternities and sororities were banned at Amherst College in 2014, and Wesleyan University announced that same year that it would require fraternities to be coed. Middlebury College is among several other small northeastern institutions that banned such clubs years ago.
Even so, with fraternities at a number of universities under fire as the focus of sexual misconduct complaints, the decision by Harvard could spur other colleges to restrict single-gender clubs.
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