From the #StandUpToHarvard Facebook Post, June 29, 2020, 7:28pm
Students Win! After Stand Up to Harvard plaintiffs filed a motion for injunction today, Harvard said that it will no longer enforce a ban on single-sex social clubs, after concluding that the prohibition would likely not withstand a legal challenge from fraternities and sororities. (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/29/metro/harvard-will-drop-policy-targeting-all-male-final-clubs/)
Dani Weatherford, CEO of the National Panhellenic Conference, and Judson Horras, CEO of the North American Interfraternity Conference, released the following joint statement on Harvard’s decision to drop its sanctions policy:
While we believe the discriminatory nature of Harvard’s policy was apparent long ago, we are nonetheless gratified to see that Harvard will no longer seek to enforce such an unlawful policy.
Our focus has always been on the freedom of association rights of students and on the particularly acute harm that this policy has done to women’s-only organizations on Harvard’s campus. Today’s announcement from the university is nothing short of an admission that their policy was misguided and openly discriminatory based on sex. This should serve as a lesson to Harvard and other universities—students are free to associate with other students without regard to their gender, and targeting single-sex student organizations is illegal and wrong.
While we are pleased that this policy will no longer hang over Harvard students, we are also painfully aware that its effects will linger – particularly for women’s-only organizations that were decimated by this policy.
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