In December 2018, Sigma Alpha Epsilon joined several other interfraternal partners in filing a lawsuit against Harvard University in federal court, challenging their overreaching policy which sanctions individual students for choosing to join unrecognized single-sex organizations. In early 2019, Harvard responded by filing a motion to dismiss the case.
Last week, Harvard University dropped its social group sanctions policy. The decision effectively ends the federal lawsuit in which sororities, fraternities, and students challenged that the sanctions policy punishes students who join off-campus, single-sex social organizations. This would have kept members of those groups from receiving fellowships, athletics captaincies, and leadership positions in extracurricular groups. Sigma Alpha Epsilon will continue to stand with our fellow fraternities and sororities to ensure all organizations have equal opportunities for their members to succeed.
Dani Weatherford, CEO of the National Panhellenic Conference, and Judson Horras, CEO of the North American Interfraternity Conference, released the following joint statement on Harvard’s decision to drop its sanctions policy:
While we are pleased that this policy will no longer hang over Harvard students, we are also painfully aware that its effects will linger—particularly for women’s-only organizations that were decimated by this policy.
For more information, please visit: https://www.standuptoharvard.org/.
