To the Editor:
At Princeton, the unregulated Eating Clubs for the two upper classes have "Bicker" for what we call Rush, and the clubs have venerable cultures and reputations -- jock clubs, geek clubs, clubs for folks who say they don't believe in clubs, etc.
At Yale, the heavy, discriminatory selectivity is in the junior year for places in the Senior Societies which polkadot the campus with their Tombs. During their junior spring, students join a " "Greek" organization, also unregulated by the school, and some seniors suffer loss of self-esteem when not tapped for a Society, or for the prestigious Society to which they aspire. Was it "affirmative action" that helped the son and grandson of former Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush get tapped by the creme de la creme, Skull and Bones?
Harvard also has its self-selecting Final Clubs, with hereditary as well as other subjective criteria for admission. And so it goes throughout America's most famous colleges and universities.
Perhaps the Dartmouth Administration should just declare our houses co-ed, require that there be a place for everyone who wants to join, and come back to the reality that even the best and the brightest boys and girls, sometimes, just want to have fun.
