The existence of such organizations undermines the spirit of fairness and accessibility that should exist here at one of the great public universities. If indeed the objectives, activities and social networks embraced by the secret societies do benefit the general population of University students, then membership ought to be open to all who aspire to join. The societies seem to me to be little more than clubs of self-important people who became members of the societies through the very social networks and friendships that the societies supposedly exist to further. This hardly seems like something that benefits the University population as a whole. It is interesting to me that the kind of elitism that propels secret societies is being criticized on the basis of a technicality that really doesn't seem to have much impact on who gets invited to join since one organization exists for men and another for women.
Nobody complains about the separateness of women's and men's restrooms.
The burden of proof ought to be placed on the secret societies to show that they are indeed worthy of association with the University. No single ethnic or religious group runs the world. This type of thinking is very similar to those who in 1960 thought a vote for Kennedy was a vote for the Pope and the Catholic Church to take over the United States. However, Berman is equally ignorant if he feels Jews are not represented in influential and powerful sectors of society. Companies don't get much larger than that.