You’ve Been Punched to Not Punch

This week, Harvard students woke up to find a slip of paper slid under their doors inviting them “to consider not punching a final club this fall.” This little pink square of paper brings up some interesting—if debatable—points, so let’s break it down:

Exclusivity. Have the authors of these notes seen Harvard’s admissions statistics recently? Railing on exclusivity = throwing stone; Harvard University = glass house.

Gender discrimination. Fair point. I’m not sure that many people would agree that the presence of “female final clubs” on campus makes up for the social weight that the traditional, male-only final clubs have. That said, word on the street is that the male segment of the Class of 2018 would also like the final clubs to be held accountable for discrimination against freshman males.

Lack of transparency. You know what, let’s talk about what really needs to be made more transparent... is it final club or finals club? I don’t think anyone knows, and it made writing this article take like 45 extra seconds. I wrote the phrase “final clubs’” at one point, and it felt ridiculous.

I want to talk about the watermark on these notes. It’s a unicorn. I don’t get that. Does the group that made these notes have a unicorn for a mascot? If so, get me the punchmaster's email STAT, because I need to get in on that.