Final club

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A final club (often mispronouned "finals club") is an undergraduate social club at Harvard College. There are currently eight such all-male clubs at Harvard: the A.D. (1 Plympton St.)^[1]; Delphic (9 Linden St),^[1]^[2]; Fly (2 Holyoke Pl.)^[3]^[1]; Fox (44 John F. Kennedy St.)^[1]^[2]; Owl (30 Holyoke St)^[1]; Phoenix-SK (72 Mt Auburn St),^[1]^[2]; Porcellian (1324 Mass Ave)^[1]; and the Spee (76 Mt Auburn St)^[1], where John F. Kennedy was a member^[2]. All were established a century or more ago. Four all-female clubs, comparable to the male final clubs, have been founded more recently and are called the Bee, the Isis, the Pleiades, and the Sabliere Society. The Bee was founded in 1991; Isis in 2000; and Pleiades and Sabliere more recently.

All of the male clubs own club houses they have occupied for decades, each of which includes dining halls, chefs, libraries, game rooms, bedrooms or lounges. Some have saunas and shower rooms, and The Delphic Club boasts a regulation size squash court.^{[citation needed]} The Bee Club rents space at 45 Dunster Street. Isis, the Sabliere Society, and the Pleiades do not currently have spaces.^[1] Most of the final clubs do not provide housing to undergraduate members, nor are they affiliated with national organizations (anymore, that is — the Spee began its life as Zeta Psi, the Delphic began as Delta Phi, and the A.D. and the Fly began as Alpha Delta Phi; other remnants remain as well). Long affiliated with and supported by Harvard, the male final clubs were ordered in 1984 to either go coeducational or go private. The clubs privatized and since then have maintained themselves beyond university regulation. The clubs own valuable property in Cambridge, collectively assessed at over $17 million as of 2006, but with a market value likely exceeding that figure.

Historically, there was more differentiation among the clubs. Years ago Harvard College freshmen hoped to join the Hasty Pudding social club. Going into their senior year, students aspired to join either the A.D. or the Porcellian, the original two final clubs. In the interim, they hoped to gain admission to one of the "waiting clubs," as the other clubs were known.

Each fall the clubs hold "punch season," which is similar to the rush period for fraternities. Select sophomores and juniors are invited to a series of four social events. After each event, fewer and fewer prospective members, or "punches" are invited back. After the last event, called "final dinner", a club will elect a handful of new members who then choose among the clubs they have been asked to join. Being "punched" refers to receiving an invitation to the first punch event. Once the punch process has begun, the verb "to punch" can also refer to a prospective member's attending of the events--e.g., "Jones is punching Delphic and A.D."

The clubs have an undergraduate membership of around sixty a piece, amounting to nearly 20% of the eligible (2nd semester of sophomore year and older) male undergraduates and 5% of eligible female undergraduates. The clubs have varying restrictions on entrance for guests. Some final clubs often hold parties and open their doors to women and male guests of members. Others, like the A.D., have only in recent history opened their doors to female guests of members and still do not allow male guests. Still others, like the Porcellian and the Delphic, rarely welcome non-members; Porcellian, for example, never allows non-members past "the bicycle room" in the building's foyer, while the Delphic generously permits its guests access only to its basement by a separate entrance.

1 Controversy
2 Political backlash
3 References
4 External links
5 See also

[edit] Controversy

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Male final clubs have long been a point of controversy at Harvard because of their implicit elitism. They do not allow women as members, and some clubs have historical traditions that make them more of a reflection of Harvard's predominantly white, trust-fund wealthy, Protestant past than its present. In recent years the clubs have all grown increasingly diverse. Nevertheless the controversy still flares up occasionally as protests and boycotts and perennial debate in the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, usually around punch season, similar in nature and tone to editorials in the Yale Daily News during mid-April-tap season and in the Daily Princetonian during bicker. The clubs, however, weather the protests; as private organizations, neither student opinion nor Harvard's anti-discrimination policies matter materially, and the promise of social rank and professional connections continue to lure prospective members.

The issue of sexual assault at final clubs has also been a source of concern on campus. The Harvard "Dis-orientation Guide," wrote: "By not allowing women into their clubs, final club members and their governing boards of graduates ("grad-boards") create unfairly gendered networks and social spaces alike. The atmosphere at final clubs is undeniably a hetero-normative and male-dominated one. This environment fosters not only sexism and homophobia but also, and much more troublingly, sexual assault. Though Harvard will not release figures revealing where on campus sexual assault occurs, in 2002 Assistant Dean of the College Karen E. Avery '87 told female first-years to be aware of "potential dangers that have been reported in regard to final clubs." ^[4] Two Harvard students started Students Against Super Sexist Institutions-We Oppose Oppressive Finals Clubs (SASSI-WOOFCLUBS) in September 2004, in opposition to the influence of final clubs on Harvard's campus.

One interesting component of the debate is the rise of a significant fraternity and sorority presence at Harvard. In a short period of time, three female final clubs (The Bee, Isis and The Sablière Society), three fraternities (Sigma Chi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Alpha Epsilon Pi), three sororities (Kappa Kappa Gamma, Delta Gamma, and Kappa Alpha Theta), and two additional all-female organizations (The Seneca and The Pleiades) have greatly expanded the presence of formal social organizations at the College. Though Harvard recognizes none of these groups, informal estimates suggest that up to 800 students of the college (one eighth) belong to single-sex social clubs. However, many would make distinctions — especially between male and female final clubs and their Greek counterparts — because final clubs are perceived as being more prestigious and elitist, both in terms of the attitude fostered among club members, the extravagance of the spaces they enjoy, and the culture of wealth from which each springs and supports.

[edit] Political backlash

In January of 2006 national attention focused on the Harvard final club system as a result of the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito. Alito came under criticism as a result of his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a conservative group that opposed affirmative action and the admission of women into Princeton. One of the leading Democrats highlighting this charge was Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. Conservatives, however, responded by pointing out Kennedy's membership in the Owl Club. As a result of the political fallout, Senator Kennedy chose to leave the club. However, members of the Owl club remain so for life and cannot choose to leave.

In August of that same year, Massachusetts Democratic Gubernatorial candidate (and now Governor) Deval Patrick came under fire for his membership in the Fly Club. Critics viewed Patrick's membership in the club as contradictory to his image as a champion of civil rights. Patrick countered that he had left the club in the early 1980s when he realized that it contradicted his values, although the club itself had Patrick's name on its roster as late as 2006.