The announcement of the sanctions brought forth by Harvard University sent a shockwave across campuses everywhere, primarily on campuses with Greek organizations. These sanctions have created a dangerous precedent for the relationship of these organizations with their respective universities. For those who do not know about these sanctions, you can read up on the exact details of them here. The run down of these sanctions is essentially this: Harvard is attempting to phase out, or severely alter, Greek social organizations. Students who are members of such organizations are being deemed ineligible for a range of things from postgraduate scholarships to organizational leadership positions around campus.
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The basis of these sanctions is the idea that these organizations do not fall in line with the "core values" of Harvard as a whole. Those values depict an inclusive student body, where everyone has the opportunity to be involved in any student organization, even regardless of gender. Yet, this is where the hypocrisy in these statements begins to take shape. One of the most notoriously selective schools in the world is condemning any semblance of exclusivity. This concept is simply mind-numbing. Not only that, but this mentality seems to corner Greek organizations who already carry an incorrectly-placed, negative stereotype.
This stereotype comes from media stories that tend to depict the extreme outlier, rather than the norm, for these organizations. Yet, the attention is overwhelmingly attributed to these outliers, which fuel the negative stereotype. To avoid these negative possibilities, organizations are forced to become even more selective in their recruitment in an effort to preserve their future. If these organizations loosened their requirements, the odds of those outliers occurring increase, possibly even to the point of being the norm. This precedent presents an ultimatum where Greek organizations are given two choices: to be punished for being selective, or to be punished for being inclusive. A scenario where they cannot win.
Furthermore, Harvard showcases its hypocrisy by barring these students from involvement with leadership in other organizations. The university punished the supposed "discrimination" shown by Greeks with the exact thing it condemns, discrimination. Harvard chooses to display a prejudice openly against a group of students, an act that should cause anger towards anyone who believes in equality. If that rule were applied to my school, I would not have had the opportunity to be on the executive board for Dance Marathon. Instead, a less-qualified candidate would have been chosen purely to punish me for being Greek. By extension, that could make the Dance Marathon less than what it could have been, ultimately hurting the very reason for the event...the kids. By this way of thinking, the approach of Harvard would simply be hurting sick children...another effect that should anger most people. The school outreaches its boundaries further by enacting these sanctions upon fraternities that are not even recognized by the school. By this act, they are essentially enacting a penalty on a group that is in no way connected to the campus, which is something that seems to infringe upon the rights of the students.
Ultimately, Greek organizations are around for a reason. It's a cliché, but they do have values that they stick to more often than not. They may be single gender, but they have equivalents that exist alongside eachother, disallowing any room for sexist discrimination. This step endangers the dynamic, and even the existence, of Greek organizations. These groups grow leaders and make a positive impact on the people, yet are only viewed as elitist organizations that promote discrimination. If Greek life was so bad, how come the numbers and statistics are in favor of Greek students? These organizations only "discriminate" by the character of the person, because organizations need to prevent "bad" people from joining the group. Harvard thinks it is promoting equality, but it instead drives discrimination. Forcing these groups to distance from their ideals and become identical defeats the purpose of the groups that value or stand for something.
To stand for everything is to stand for nothing.
