Zalkind Law Sues Harvard On Behalf of Women's Organizations

Today, Emma Quinn-Judge, David Russcol, Ana Munoz, and Harvey Silverglate filed a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court challenging Harvard’s policy that punishes students who join single-sex organizations. As the complaint in the case notes “As a result of this policy, almost every single-sex organization available to undergraduate women at Harvard closed its doors, or reorganized as a co-ed social organization. Most male single-sex organizations, by contrast, remain open, providing men with relationships, opportunities, and experiences to which Harvard undergraduate women now have limited access.” Harvard’s policy, which bars members of single-sex social organizations from holding leadership positions on campus, varsity team athletic captaincies, and prohibits them from receiving College endorsement for prestigious fellowships, “violates the fundamental rights of Harvard women and men to associate freely with their peers and to live free of sex discrimination, rights guaranteed by articles 1 and 19 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, as amended, as well as the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

Information about the firm’s suit, and a parallel federal lawsuit also filed today, can be found at www.standuptoharvard.org.