I have been pleased during the last few years that student leaders have spoken out on the issue of whether sororities and fraternities should exist at Dartmouth if they discriminate on the basis of gender. This is a topic that deserves careful consideration and discussion.
While I am off-campus this year and have not seen all the articles and letters that have appeared in The Dartmouth, I do not recall seeing any discussion starting from the position that organizations that discriminate on the basis of gender violate Dartmouth's equal opportunity policy, and hence should be eliminated.
If our equal opportunity policy permits exceptions to the bases of non-discrimination, then we need to carefully justify the reasons that student social organizations are exempt from a policy that Dartmouth has embraced in many forums as fundamental to our values and our purposes.
Having listened to many discussions on this topic, it is my opinion that single-sex fraternities and sororities unfortunately per- petuate and reinforce concepts and behavior that in the long run foster discrimination instead of eliminating it.
For example, if one argument for the Co-ed, Sorority, Fraternity system is that it is an opportunity to get to know a small group of peers well and develop what will turn into lifelong friendships, then this seems to me a major argument for co-ed organizations, not ones that are based on gender.
Clearly there are situations where society accepts and benefits from organizations or programs that discriminate, though I believe that in most cases those programs should be considered transitional (for example, shouldn't women's studies evolve into gender studies?), but I do not see this argument pertaining to single-sex sororities and fraternities. The argument is made that the federal rules on discrimination exempt fraternities and sororities. However, in the instance of sexual orientation (which is not a federally-mandated basis for non-discrimination but one adopted by Dartmouth), the College has chosen to argue and act on the premise that its standards are higher than the federal government's.
Our present discussion on Reserve Officer Training Corps is a result of this higher standard. It seems fitting to have an equally high standard for organizations over which we have direct control.
I went to a small college out west and was a member of an all-male eating club. Based on that experience I strongly value organizations that permit one to interact with a small group over a number of years. It is the members of that organization that have made up a high percentage of my lifelong friends.
With hindsight, one of the few things from my undergraduate days I wish I could do over would have been to be an advocate for transforming that all-male eating club into a co-ed one.
John Strohbehn is the former College Provost.