The social landscape of Harvard University is difficult for many to wrap their heads around, including students and alumni. Between highly-competitive student-run groups that furnish members with many opportunities to socialize, informal groups of students that self-segregate, and the infamous final clubs, there is much to be baffled by at the world’s most prestigious university. However, many people do not know that Harvard is also home to a small handful of fraternities and sororities. Yep, the kind you would find at any regular old university! What is the place of fraternities and sororities on Harvard’s campus, and are they currently at odds with Harvard’s administration?

A Brief History of Single-Gender Social Clubs at Harvard

Final clubs at Harvard have a long and storied history of mysterious exclusivity that dates back to the eighteenth century. To this day, these clubs are incredibly exclusionary and tend to chiefly admit members who come from high socioeconomic status and/or elite prep schools. Following the integration of Radcliffe College into Harvard University in the late twentieth century, the all-male clubs on campus began to be accompanied by all-female clubs. While these new organizations sought to mimic the prestige of their all-male counterparts, they lacked the mansions necessary to assert their social dominance on campus. Today, all-female final clubs are often forced to inhabit the basements of all-male clubs, or inconvenient locations far away from campus. 

Fraternities were alive on Harvard’s campus in the first half of the nineteenth century until Harvard banned such organizations in the 1850s. Many of the current final clubs trace their origins back to disaffiliation from national Greek organizations during this time. Since Harvard banned fraternities, a handful of off-campus Greek life organizations have been maintained by Harvard students, including both fraternities and sororities, but they lack any official ties to the university. Where do these Greek life organizations place within Harvard’s social hierarchy? The answer is: not very high!

Fraternities and sororities are largely viewed as second hand alternatives to final clubs, and are  typically only joined by those who did not make it into a club of their choice. Not only do these organizations perpetuate many of the same social ills as the final clubs, such as cultures of heteronormativity, socioeconomic discrimination, and group conformity, but they can not lay claim to the social capital and space made available to final club members. It is essentially a lose-lose situation for members.

Does Harvard Sanction Fraternities and Sororities?

Since they were banned in the 1850s, Greek life organizations at Harvard have never regained university recognition. Much like their final club counterparts, they exist in the uneasy space between being tacitly accepted by the administration and being discouraged. In 2017, it appeared that all single-gender social organizations on campus would soon be phased out when a faculty committee announced a policy sanctioning students who join such groups, but by 2020, this policy had been rescinded due to lack of widespread student or faculty support. 

Today, the social landscape has returned to business as usual: final clubs and Greek life organizations are not recognized by the university, and the administration discourages students from joining them on account of their exclusionary and discriminatory cultures, but Harvard is all bark and no bite. In practice, students are not sanctioned for their participation in exclusive social clubs. In many ways this reflects the will of the student body. Harvard’s campus culture places great importance on institutional affiliation, and the vast majority of students try their hand at admission to at least one highly-selective student organization during their time on campus.

So are fraternities and sororities soon to experience a campus renaissance? It’s not likely. They simply cannot match the history, resources, prestige, and intrigue of the final clubs. Some students may view these organizations as a jumping-off point from which final club membership could be gained, but most students steer clear of these “lesser” social clubs.