Word: porcellians
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...process of punching is something like bowling, with the club members rolling the balls and then watching to see what's left standing. Clubs like the Porcellian have never been overly fond of the idea of admitting anybody who is not white, male, preppie and Protestant, and few of those out of the standard mold have made it through the rounds. Things have changed during the last decade however, and the Porc can now point to its first non-white (Asian-American) member...
...when the members of the Porcellian Club gathered last fall to discuss giving a Black student a key to the big black doors, the idea was rejected by one or two. Rejected not because the student had insulted members of the club, nor because he was difficult to deal with and not because he couldn't produce a good pedigree if push came to shove; but rejected, as the silent explanations must have shown, because he is Black...
They say that a few members of the club quit in protest and somebody on the club's graduate board eventually intervened in the matter--admirable gestures--but the Porcellian Club still doesn't have any Black members. I asked a faculty member why this sort of thing goes on at a University which prides itself on open-mindedness. And he looked across the Yard and muttered something about the club being a private institution and not blaming everyone for what two members did, and shook his head. "Some things at Harvard," he said, "never change...
These are the people who will leave Harvard this year, and for another 347 years, to become loyal alumni of the Porcellian Club and lawyers in New York earning six-figure salaries. For with the Harvard name stamped on a diploma that you can hang up on the wall and write into your resume, there's little that will get in your way. Many of them entered Harvard knowing exactly what they had to do; took their required pre-med courses, learned computer skills and filled out the applications that they needed to keep climbing up the ladder...
...much harder to try and understand where that acceptance comes from, and what other people are thinking and what they need. It's very difficult for a white heterosexual male to imagine what a Black lesbian is thinking. But if we're ever going to understand why the Porcellian Club has no Black members, or why the Third World students marched into 14 Plympton St.--or learn to abandon security for something more valuable--a lot more people are going to have to start asking for bacon with their waffles...