Chartering A Club

After two evenings of wrangling, the Student Council voted Monday to grant a charter to the Sphinx Club, a new final club. The tortuous route which the Sphinx Club's charter application travelled indicates that a fundamental misconception of the chartering process has arisen in the minds of many Council members.

The chief stumbling block which the Sphinx Club faced was that a majority of the Council has serious doubts as to the merit of the club system, and, in particular, the merit of the final club as an institution at Harvard College. Some Council members who disliked the club system felt that they could not vote to give the Sphinx Club a charter because such a vote would constitute endorsement of the club system. These Council members also felt that the chartering of the new final club might lead to a flood of charter applications for more new final clubs, and would thus permit the final club system to affect a much greater number of students than the fewer than ten percent of the College who are now final club members.

Because of these doubts about the club system, the resolution chartering the Sphinx Club contained a proviso stating that the charter did not constitute Council endorsement of the club system. The measure chartering the Sphinx Club was also closely linked to a resolution urging next year's Council to investigate the club system.

It is a significant and unwholesome broadening of the chartering process for value judgments about an organization to enter the discussion as to whether it should get a charter. The Council must rid itself of the conception that chartering an organization constitutes endorsement of the group or what it stands for. The same criteria which today are applied to social clubs tomorrow will be applied to political clubs.

Majority control of minority groups always poses a difficult problem for a democracy. There is probably no "perfect" solution. But the only way to cope with the problem without imposing either dictatorship of the majority or dictatorship of the minority is constitutionalism. When applied to the Harvard scene, this means that there should be simple, written rules as to how any group may get a charter. These rules should not involve value judgments as to what "furthers the purposes of a Harvard education."

We suggest that the necessary rules are three:

1) That the organization be composed entirely of students at Harvard University, and that all its officers be students at Harvard University;

2) That control and direction of the organization's affairs lie entirely within the jurisdiction of its members, and that affiliation with national groups may be made only on the basis of complete local autonomy;

3) That the group be financially solvent.

Chartering a club under such rules would be simple. A club would submit a request for a charter, along with the proof that it fulfilled the three requirements, to the Faculty Committee on Undergraduate Activities. The Committee would then refer the application to the Student Council. The Council would then check to see that the three provisions were in fact lived up to, and, basing its report entirely on the criteria of the three required provisions, would make a recommendation to the Committee. The Committee would make sure to its own satisfaction whether or not the three criteria were indeed lived up to and would grant or refuse a charter solely on this basis.

In attempting to arrogate to the Council the power to refuse a group existence because the Council dislikes it, certain Council members have gone too far. Though they seek to portray themselves as democrats because they now would use this power against entrenched privilege as represented by the club system, they must realize that when the right of free association is so seriously curtailed, democracy is not being furthered but instead subverted.