All-Male Harvard Club Breaks Silence, Suggests Including Women Increases Odds of Sexual Misconduct

Cambridge, MA - A men-only club on Harvard University campus is pushing back against university criticism, but perhaps not in a way that will mend its reputation.

In an email to The Harvard Crimson, a leader of the university's storied Porcellian Club critiqued an administrative call to make such final clubs co-ed. A university task force on sexual assault prevention has chastised all-male clubs for “deeply misogynistic attitudes," among other critiques.

The email from Porcellian Club graduate board president Charles M. Storey argued against what he cast as the administration's McCarthy-esque infringement on academic freedom and free association, as well as its call to broaden membership.

While his and other final clubs also hope to curb campus sexual assault, Storey argued, allowing women into such exclusive clubs could actually exacerbate the problem.

“Forcing single gender organizations to accept members of the opposite sex could potentially increase, not decrease the potential for sexual misconduct," he wrote.

That last statement has appalled many readers. But so, too, has the university's apparent targeting of independently operated clubs, judging by comment sections and social media posts regarding the story.

The Harvard Crimson reports The Porcellian Club, whose past members include President Theodore Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, has not spoken publicly since 1984. Read the full story here.

Storey, who heads Boston's popular Harpoon Brewery, publicly apologized for the remarks late Wednesday.

>> Photo courtesy Ted Eytan via Flickr/Creative Commons