Harvard to bar members of single-gender clubs from leadership roles

Harvard University announced on Friday that students who are members of single-gender social clubs would be barred from leadership positions at the school starting in 2017.

Starting with the incoming freshman in 2017, Harvard students who are part of social organizations that only allow members of one gender will be barred from leading official clubs and sports teams, the Boston Globe reported.

“[The clubs] encourage a form of self-segregation that undermines the promise offered by Harvard’s diverse student body,” Harvard President Drew Faust wrote in a university statement quoted by the Globe.

The new policy shift will not affect current students or those planning to enroll at the university in the fall, The Associated Press reported, adding that some of the final clubs, a term used to describe the exclusive social organizations, affected by the announcement have been operating for hundreds of years.

The new rule will be applied to members of the eight all-male final clubs, six all-female final clubs and university fraternities and sororities, according to the Globe.

Recently, the school’s administrators had been pressuring single-gender clubs to drop their exclusionary membership, and a university report indicated that the clubs contributed to on-campus sexual assaults, the AP added.