I would like to first start off with a disclaimer: I am not a Harvard man, and by that I mean to say that I am not an alumni or student of the prestigious university. Going further off of that statement is the fact that I am no way associated with Harvard’s Final Clubs or their extensive alumni network. I am just a college student at a private college in northern Louisiana that just so happened to stumble across what I perceive to be an injustice.

Harvard, like every other college and university across the United States, has a very vibrant social life. To cater to this community, Harvard created Final Clubs. The objectives, to my knowledge, of the Final Clubs were to create bonds of brotherhood between young men. Like fraternities and sororities across the nation, Final Clubs are exclusive and are singular in the sex they represent. Final Clubs for men have existed at Harvard since 1791, and Final Clubs for women were formed in 1991. With anything that is highly selective, secretive and is by design exclusive, controversy over inequality of access will exist.

The injustice occurred when The New York Times reported that the Dean of the College, Rakesh Khurana, made this statement: “Starting with the class of 2021, members will be barred from leadership roles in Harvard-sanctioned clubs and athletics and from receiving recommendations from the dean for top scholarships like the Rhodes and Fulbright.”

Why is this an injustice you might be wondering? What is the big deal if they can’t compete for these scholarships? Simply put, these scholarships alone have the ability to change a person’s life forever, and denying them the opportunity to compete for them is hypocritical to their argument.

The Dean of the college is against environments where exclusivity is found, and seeks to create a place where every individual has the ability to succeed. In his crusade to do this, he states that members of these social clubs can’t participate in the interuniversity competition for nomination for these scholarships. Rakesh Khurana even went on further to say “The discriminatory membership policies of these organizations have led to the perpetuation of spaces that are rife with power imbalances,” (New York Times). To right the perceived imbalance of power he strips from the students the ability to change their lives. You see, by denying certain groups of people access to the scholarships they are themselves creating exclusivity which they loathe. Ironic, huh?

I am not a Harvard man. I am not affected by these policies. But I know how I would react if my university banned me from these scholarships all because I decided to join my fraternity. I would be angry. I would be heartbroken. I would be a lot of different things. I sympathize with those men and women in those clubs all the way up at Harvard. No one man should be able to dictate who should be eligible for those scholarships, that is where the injustice lies.