FILE PHOTO: College students and pedestrians paddle via the Yard at Harvard University, after the college requested its college students no longer to approach to campus after Spring Atomize and stated it will pass to digital instruction for graduate and undergraduate classes, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
BOSTON (Reuters) – Harvard University on Monday stated it will pause its policy of sanctioning college students who joined single-sex golf equipment, citing a lawsuit by a community of U.S. fraternities and sororities who stated the crackdown amounted to sexual discrimination.
Harvard President Lawrence Bacow stated it regarded clear the Ivy League college would lose the lawsuit following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling holding that a federal legislation barring office discrimination protects gay and transgender workers.
Bacow in an electronic mail to university and college students stated Harvard’s policy on single-sex golf equipment did no longer declare sexual orientation and modified into once adopted to counteract “overt” discrimination in which college students were excluded from teams per their gender.
But he stated the Supreme Court docket’s June 15 decision had “vital implications” for Harvard’s policy, because it upheld a name a Boston federal think in August relied upon in allowing the lawsuit against the college to pass ahead.
Harvard stopped formally recognizing single-sex golf equipment in 1984. But teams identified as “closing golf equipment,” informal social golf equipment a student joins earlier than graduating, moreover a couple fraternities and sororities persevered to characteristic off campus.
The policy at subject modified into once adopted in 2016 and first enforced with the 2017 freshman class.
Below it, college students who joined single-sex golf equipment might per chance well no longer relief as captains of sports activities teams or leaders of officially identified student golf equipment and cannot obtain endorsement letters from college deans for postgraduate fellowships.
The fraternities Sigma Chi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the sororities Kappa Alpha Theta and Kappa Kappa Gamma sued in 2018, announcing Harvard modified into once discriminating against college students on the foundation of their sex.
U.S. District Mediate Nathaniel Gorton allowed the lawsuit to pass ahead, discovering it plausibly alleged Harvard modified into once discriminating per gender because it barred men nonetheless no longer girls americans from joining all-male golf equipment and vice versa.
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
