A sorority on Harvard University’s campus has announced it will disband two years after the university said it would penalize students for membership in any “unrecognized single-gender social organizations,” which include fraternities, sororities, and final clubs.
The Delta Gamma sorority said Sunday it was responding to a request to disband from its chapter in Cambridge, Zeta Phi, which was made in May and followed by a 60-day comment period, according to the Washington Post. The sorority then voted unanimously to disband.
“We respect the chapter’s decision and understand that the University’s sanctions resulted in an environment in which Delta Gamma could not thrive. We sincerely hope this changes in the future,” Delta Gamma president Wilma Johnson Wilbanks said in a statement.
The university’s policy, which was enacted this spring, bans members from leadership positions in other student organizations and from participation in athletics, as well as refusing to endorse students for prestigious scholarships. University president Drew Gilpin Faust also said sororities created “forms of privilege and exclusion at odds with our deepest values” and that Harvard could not “endorse selection criteria that reject much of the student body merely because of gender,” according to the New York Times.
After Harvard’s policy was put in place, three unrecognized sororities defied the university’s order to go co-ed or to disband. Delta Gamma has now disbanded, while another sorority decided to go gender neutral.
