Word: eta
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Defendants of the Pi Eta complain that such official actions are themselves immoral as they tresspass on the sacrosanct territory of free speech. Yet this logic confuses the principles involved. Few people deny the club the legal right to make whatever statements it wants. But the University and its members have the same right to declare that viewpoint inappropriate and to try and discourage it. While that policy would be disconcerting if applied liberally, all but the staunchest of libertarians would have to concede that it can be used against blatant sexism or racism without poisoning the atmosphere for free...
Some have floated the idea that that response should come from the Ad Board, the College's disciplinary body. In the Pi Eta case, however, disciplinary action is ill-suited to the problem at hand. First, it is unclear whether all club members should be held responsible for the letter. More important, though, disciplinary measures offer little hope of promise of affecting the attitudes that are expressed in the newsletter...
...should go beyond their statements of last week. Although helpful in alerting students to offensive behavior, the public declarations do not explore why such attitudes exist, and how they might be changed. The University's implicit acceptance and subsidization of all male clubs--including the Pi Eta as well as nine final clubs--probably has something to do with it. Harvard currently offers the final clubs access to the steam heat system, centrex phones and alumni records. Such involvement with groups that, as a matter of policy, exclude women, can only be seen as an insult to the principle...
...CORRECT to look beyond the Pi Eta affair itself to see the kind of lessons it teaches, but the majority opinion goes too far in attacking the final clubs...
University disapproval of the newsletter, with luck, will inspire a strong anti-sexism in the same league as the Pi Eta Speakers Club, the majority makes an unfair and uninformed connection. In so far as the final clubs are sexist by virtue (or lack thereof) of not admitting women, the link is obvious. However, grouping the clubs together assumes that the final clubs house the same dangerous mentality about women as the Pi Eta, and it also lessens the offense itself...