Penn's Clubs Needlessly Exclude Students, And You Can Help Fix That
Penn's system of exclusive clubs harms its students. If you're a Penn student, here's how you can fight back.
Part 1: The Problem
As many of you doubtlessly already know, Penn hosted an activity fair a few weeks ago for clubs to advertise to students. In addition to manning tables for two other clubs I run, I found an unused table and set up a poster for my satirical Unnecessary Exclusion Club1. As people walked by, I promoted this prestigious club with the slogan "Unnecessary Exclusion Club: Penn's most elite and most exclusive exclusion club, though by no means the only one."
The gesture evidently struck a chord, because dozens of people stopped by my table, and the responses were overwhelmingly positive. A few people took pictures of my sign. Many, of course, asked to join, and I unnecessarily excluded them all2.
Though I'm very glad I did this, I don't want to paint this move as cleverer than it actually was: this was very low-hanging fruit. For anyone who doesn't know, many Penn clubs have lengthy written applications, followed by one or more interview(s), and many still reject the vast majority of their applicants. Some even have acceptance rates comparable to Penn itself3 (from a pool of exclusively Penn students, remember).
There are some situations where excluding students from clubs is defencible4: a choir, for instance, might have its song ruined by even a handful of people who can't sing well. But those situations are by far a minority. If you don't believe me on that, pick out five clubs at random from the Penn Clubs website, and see if you can come up with a compelling reason for more than one of them to exclude students from their club. (From their club being the key phrase; for example, a robotics team that goes to competitions may only be able to bring a set number of people to the competition, but, unless there's a rule against it, they should be able to allow anyone interested to help building the robot.) In the supermajority of cases, there's no compelling reason to exclude anyone willing to devote the time and effort to work to help the club's mission.
The biggest downside of exclusive clubs is obvious: they deprive students the opportunity to participate in whatever activity the club does, which is often an academic, service, recreational, or other activity that has obvious benefits. But exclusive clubs do harm beyond that: they also shut students out of one of the best avenues for making friends with similar interests, and they push students to conform to a proverbial rat race5 involving obsession over credentials, applications, and interviews6, rather than, say, learning. We want students who value a club for what it does, not for the credential that its membership represents.
Part 2: The Cause
It would be easy to blame this broken system entirely upon the students who run these exclusionary clubs, and upon Penn institutions for supporting them. A couple years ago, I probably would have. And to be fair, they do deserve at least a decent portion of the blame here, perhaps even a majority of it.
But part of the blame also rests with students who choose to apply for unjustly exclusionary clubs7. And reinforcing this choice, and the desperation to get into exclusive clubs, is a common perception amongst Penn students that exclusive clubs are more prestigious and desirable. If you're a Penn student and especially if you're an underclassman, do not forget this: a club being run by the kind of people looking to needlessly turn others away, rather than to involve everyone who wants to contribute to the club's mission, isn't more desirable. It's hard to argue, however, that exclusive clubs don't tend to be more prestigious. But prestige isn't some nebulous trait; it's a measure of how people see something. To the extent that exclusiveness earns clubs prestige, it only does so because we've bought into their lies.
Part 3: A Solution
This problem, fortunately, has a fairly straightforward solution. Not an easy solution, but a simple one. If you run a club that excludes students without good reason, make it open membership. If you're a Penn administrator (in the relevant department) reading this, prohibit clubs that unnecessarily exclude from receiving any Penn money8, and make it easier for those who seek to start open-membership clubs in their place.
Most importantly, if you're a student considering applying to clubs that unnecessarily exclude students, don't. Even if you're not a club leader or otherwise in a position of power, you can still choose not to be a number in the denominator of some pretentious club's admit rate. Don't suck up to people who probably don't want you anyway.
It would take a significant portion of underclassmen refusing to join exclusionary clubs to convince those clubs to become open-membership. That could happen, but it's not likely and wouldn't be an easy road. But every underclassman who joins open-membership clubs, especially new and small ones, and encourages his or her friends to do so, makes a real difference. If you're an underclassman here, you probably can't destroy this system. But you can refuse to participate in it, make the alternative better, and make it just a bit easier for your peers to do the same. And, if you join or start open-membership clubs, you can find friends who actually want you. Not a bad deal for giving up a long shot at a meaninglessly prestigious title.
And you won't have to fill out all those applications.
Which will technically be a real club if Penn Clubs ever decides to stop unnecessarily excluding it.
And mentioned my non-satirical clubs to people, and suggested that they sign up if interested. For those who are interested:
Penn Drone Club: https://groupme.com/join_group/96154574/vwei9C1e
Penn Humans vs Zombies: https://discord.gg/8FcjPHanrG
Penn Board Game Club: https://discord.gg/zMNJ5J5Kj
To give one of many examples, PEVC admitted ~8/130 people, which is roughly 6%, almost the same as Penn's 5.9%. I have a screenshot of an email from them showing the denominator, and I got the numerator from someone familiar with the club. I recognize that this isn't an amazing source, but the extreme exclusiveness of many Penn clubs is common knowledge amongst Penn students anyway.
Even in situations where there's a defencible argument for a club excluding people, there's often not a watertight argument that a club must do so.
It bears saying that I'm NOT against meritocracy as a general principle. When it's only possible to give opportunities to some, the most meritorious should generally get them. But when it's possible to give opportunities to all (ie making open membership clubs), meritocracy is a lousy excuse for denying some those opportunities.
Applications and interviews are at best a mediocre and artificial way to assess who deserves a particular position. Where it's necessary to pick a limited number of people for something like club leadership positions, I'd recommend giving them to whoever's contributed most to the club (perhaps in certain areas for certain roles).
Sometimes even to the same club multiple times. I guess the only thing worse than joining the bad guys is trying to join them, being turned away, then trying again.
Tempting though it may be, outright banning exclusionary clubs is a step too far against freedom of assembly. But not giving those clubs Penn money hinders them without infringing upon that sacred freedom.