HUA Co-President John Cooke Expelled From Fox Club Over Misconduct Allegations

The undergraduate leadership of the Fox Club expelled Harvard Undergraduate Association Co-President John S. Cooke ’25 from the organization on Wednesday over misconduct allegations.

The rare decision to remove Cooke as a member of the Fox comes less than one month before his term as Harvard’s student government co-president is set to end. It was not immediately clear what the specific allegations were that prompted the club’s leadership to seek Cooke’s removal.

The Fox’s undergraduate board initially decided to remove Cooke during a Monday evening meeting, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Cooke, however, denied the allegations when the board informed him of the decision on Tuesday — prompting Fox leadership to briefly delay the removal while they sought additional information about the misconduct allegations, one of the people said.

Rank-and-file members of the Fox learned about the decision on Wednesday when Cooke’s removal was finalized.

Cooke did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Fox undergraduate board did not respond to an emailed request for comment, and multiple members of the club declined to comment when reached by phone on Wednesday. No one answered the club’s front door when a reporter rang the doorbell Wednesday evening.

Cooke was elected HUA co-president alongside Shikoh M. Hirabayashi ’24 last spring. The pair, who ran on a platform to “Make Harvard Home,” recently proposed an academic freedom petition to the undergraduate student body and hosted a student government conference for Ivy League schools.

The news of Cooke’s removal from the Fox comes shortly before the HUA’s election season is set to begin. Under an amendment passed in the fall, Cooke’s term as co-president will end on April 20.

Final clubs and the College have had a strained relationship in the past, and until recently, Cooke would have been ineligible to be in a final club while serving as the student body co-president.

Former University President Drew Gilpin Faust imposed sanctions on student members of unrecognized single-gender social organizations in 2016.

The sanctions prohibited members of groups like the Fox from holding leadership positions in student groups or on sports teams, and rendered them ineligible for fellowships like the Marshall and Rhodes scholarships, which require an endorsement from the College.

The sanctions first applied to the class of 2021 and were dropped in 2020 following a Supreme Court ruling that deemed Harvard’s sanctions sex-based discrimination.

The Fox Club’s decision to remove Cooke is the second controversy to face the organization in recent weeks. The Fox is also embroiled in a legal dispute with its neighbors over noise complaints after the club temporarily relocated to a residential neighborhood while its clubhouse undergoes renovations.

—Staff writer Joyce E. Kim can be reached at joyce.kim@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @joycekim324.

—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.