1986 USA 56 John Harvard

Witches Covens banned at Harvard

Single gender Witches Covens are persona non grata at Harvard.  With the renewed popularity of witchcraft based on the Harry Potter genre, books, movies, theme parks, costumes, and the annual celebration of Halloween, witches are once again accepted entertainment.   A coven is company of gathering of thirteen Scottish witches, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, with records of Witch trials recorded in 1663 (See Pitcairn’s Scot. Trials, cited at pg 1100). Witches are female, warlocks are male. But due to unfortunate witch trial executions, of about 20,000 mostly in Scotland, some in the rest of England, and hundreds in the American colonies, they all but died out, literally, by about 1720. Harvard alums, including Cotton Mather Harvard 1678, joined in the witch hunts in the 1600s. The Salem Massachusetts hunt of 1692 has been the source of theater and movie plots. Any covens that continued, of necessity stayed invisible.

Harvard has recently moved to require witches covens to accept warlocks, or in the alternative, to suffer penalties on the sister witches who maintain their coven membership. No matter that Thirteen witches make a coven, not twelve, not fourteen, not two.   And if a witch drops out, that breaks the coven.

What to do?

US 10C The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , 1974

www.loc.gov  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Let’s consider the right of the people peaceably to assemble.   This right recognized the serious abuses and many murders which occurred in the 17th century in England and Scotland.   In order to destroy the opposing political forces, many of which were organized around religious beliefs, the English parliament passed laws making  an assembly illegal, leading to murders. Some of the stories are listed in the Scots Book of Days column, or can be read in Sir Walter Scots’ Tales of a Grandfather (circa 1827).

Harvard likes bi gender societies, fraternities, and sororities. Harvard receives tens of millions of dollars a week from the U.S. Government.  This is in the form of Government student loan guarantees, health grant research money from the NIH, payment of salaries for medical doctors, tax deferments, tax deduction for donations and fund raising, and many more. Doesn’t payment by the U.S. Government endorse the restrictions on the peaceable assembly? Harvard has a 35 billion endowment, and doesn’t need Government money. If Harvard wants to restrict assembly, it can, but the Government cannot. So Harvard should waive its payments, and get out from under restrictions on the Government.

Harvard doesn’t like single gender groups. Didn’t other Colleges ban fraternities and sororities outright? Yes. Among others, some decades ago, Yale banned its fraternities [and sororities]. The fraternity students could not meet on college property or use the facilities. Some closed their houses and left altogether. Other fraternities, as reported, went off campus, some would say under ground. They relied on alumni for financial support. They bought property and met in their own houses around New Haven. Yale college required students to live in campus housing, so the fraternity houses became meeting places, with a few bedrooms for overnight stay. Yale lost most or all control over the situation.

39 USA Wild Thing 2008

Apparently learning from that situation, Harvard has apparently adopted another step in the process. The Harvard Crimson, its college paper, summarized Harvard’s sanctions for the Class of 2021. In effect, any ‘single gender’ fraternity brother or sorority sister cannot become a leader on campus, to wit – no athletic captaincies of sports teams such as football or gymnastics, or ‘privileges of deans’ endorsements’ for fellowships (I assume this means Rhodes, Marshall or Fullbright scholarships), or other campus extracurricular activities. That is reaching deeper than Yale attempted.

What if a witch doesn’t disclose her coven membership to a Harvard Dean, when applying for  an endorsement? Is this deceit? Is there a statement to sign on the endorsement request,  such as ‘I attest that I do not belong to nor subscribe to any single gender sorority, association, or coven, and repudiate any such assembly, so help me God.’

Greek stamp.

The Crimson also reported that Congress is looking at this.   A May 4, 2018 column included the following. ‘[Harvard] University President Drew G. Faust penned a letter to U.S. Representative Elise M. Stefanik ’06—a key proponent of legislation that could imperil Harvard’s social organization sanctions —arguing against that legislation. In the letter, Faust wrote the legislation is worrying and emphasized she believes the College’s social group penalties are important and necessary to ensure undergraduates have “the experience of full citizenship” at Harvard. The legislation [is] an amendment to the PROSPER Act, a law that would reauthorize the Higher Education Act of 1965. The legislations ‘forbid universities that have “a policy allowing for the official recognition of single-sex student organizations” from penalizing members of groups.’

The denial of campus honors being deemed a penalty.  Indeed, they are listed on resumes for  admission into graduate and professional advanced degree programs, and for employment, and at the very least, bragging rights.

Harvard President, Faust  condemned the [Prosper Act] amendment calling the legislation “not the business of the United States Congress.”   She remarked that  the business of Congress is to aid Harvard’s ‘issues about the endowment tax and some of our other concerns in the tax bill.’

‘‘The Cambridge Coalition, a band of Harvard final clubs and Greek organizations that includes the Porcellian, is also participating in the’ Washington lobbing effort to help Harvard’s leaders to rethink their position.’

Various jingles come to mind, ‘those that live by the sword, die by the sword.’  To be rephrased as , ‘those who live by Government money, are controlled by Government money. Or, ‘The one who pays the piper, calls the tune,’ as ‘Congress pays the college bills, Congress hears its lobbyists .’

So, framing the question  are single gender ‘witches covens’   protected from prohibitions of peaceable assembly?

Source – https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/5/4/sanctions-stefanik-faust-meeting/

2016 USA jack o’lanterns Forever

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