Flanagan Final Club Summary

In an opinion piece written for the Washington Post, Caitlin Flanagan, attempts to point out the connection between Harvard’s “Final Clubs” and sexual assault. Flanagan’s argument is based upon the premise that these clubs are non-affiliated with Harvard University, and as such there is little that is able to be done. These “Final Clubs” arose from the ashes of former greek letter organizations, and currently dominate the social scene. Harvard University formed a task force to help reign in the clubs, which have been described as “radioactive.” This term has been used as many of the clubs were found to be the sites of at least one case of sexual assault. In making her case for better sexual assault education and prevention, she cites the missteps that Harvard has taken, but merely only supplies a simple solution.

This piece is heavy laden with factual evidence, which all derives from the same source, the Harvard University task force. Flanagan’s writing is heavily biased against these clubs. According to this piece, the dean of Harvard College,

Rakesh Khurana has “began cajoling, threatening and all but begging them.” Within individual meetings there have been threats of barring members from important campus leadership positions. The administration of Harvard University are attempting to make strides to slow sexual assaults on campus, however, they are making all the wrong moves.
In her final paragraph, Flanagan, suggests that police involvement would be the proper solution. Instead, Harvard University, merely is using their own “Keystone Cop system of college professors and task forces.” These steps are useless, as they only play within the realm of the reach of the administration, but yet the clubs are off-campus, non-affiliated organizations, governed solely by the laws in the real world. The problem is made real and urgent, when Flanagan cites that “47 percent of female seniors who reported participating in final club events also reported having nonconsensual sexual contact during their years in college.” However, this statistic becomes meaningless as she goes on to say “87 percent - of all sexual assault against women occur in dorms.” In saying this she disproves her own case that the clubs are involved. Essentially, Flanagan is running in circles on a wild goose chase attempting to lay blame upon organizations, who while at fault to some degree are not the primary issue, but instead are the easy target. Instead of attacking the clubs, Flanagan needs to refocus upon the cultures of the various universities. The major issue lies within school owned and maintained dorms. While attempting to lead readers to the conclusion that unregulated clubs are the issue she fails to deal with the solution the federal government is putting in place.
Flanagan compares the responses of two varying crimes, sexual assault in dorm rooms and physical assault in the same area.

For the case of physical assault she believes the response would be “swift and merciless” with the involvement of police. While it may seem to be black and white the issue of sexual assault falls deeply into a gray-zone, as victims are to emotionally damaged to testify or refuse to turn to police for help. Thus, new federal guidelines, which implement climate surveys and training sessions. These steps attempt to right the major problem, which is the campus culture, not the clubs. Flanagan’s piece is quick to generalize as she compares the “final clubs” to the greek letter organizations at major schools. This generalization fails as the total population of the greek systems at major state schools completely outnumbers many private universities, especially a small highly selective one such as

Harvard.
Flanagan’s piece fails and it fails epically. In attempting to raise awareness for a true issue she goes on a witch hunt searching for any easy target. The comparisons to greek letter organizations was the smallest of her mistakes, with the largest being her simple solution of “let’s just call the police.” This is a solution that works only in individual cases where victims are willing to come forward and testify, however, that rarely is the case. Flanagan goes onto attack the solution, which identifies the real issue in the campus culture. While some may be drawn in by the easy target of the “final clubs” they merely are the lowest hanging fruit, which Flanagan attempts to pick, but fails.