BY BRENDAN WORK

In print | March 22, 2007

Like a Hooters restaurant in Saudi Arabia, it was an operation doomed to fail. But when the Swarthmore College Republicans officially disbanded earlier this month, it was the end of a particularly long-lived hope for political diversity in a predominantly liberal college. Time passes, however, and even after this small fire, Swarthmore’s social arboretum renews itself. And now, as we look forward to many happy years of total pinko power, the demise of the Swarthmore Right encourages us to look back at a helpful, if at times kooky, history of student organizations and learn.

The earliest archives of The Phoenix, which was first published in 1882, record only so much of the annals of student life, opting instead for stuffy novelettes and scholarly legal discussions within its pages. However, we can learn from Swarthmore’s online historical account, “An Onward Spirit,” that some of the more notable contributions to the social scene included two all-male literary societies and the all-female Somerville Literary Society, all of which ostensibly fell by the wayside with the advent of chewing gum, rubber bands and better things to do.

Most Swarthmore students walked into the new century as brothers or sisters of the college’s six fraternities and four sororities, and/or members of the outlandishly named College Club, of dubious purpose, which was open to all students who had completed one year of study. But alternative groups remained, such as the Campus Club (another moniker of uncertain creativity), English Club, Classical Club and the “Math” Club, whose quirky quotation marks remained part of Swarthmore social fare until the mid-1920s. Though it’s known how Swatties did away with most of their Greek life — sororities were voted out in 1933, and most fraternities followed — it’s unclear how other institutions, like the Philosophy Club, fell from favor with the student body. Perhaps it was the 1916 arrival of the student-run musical comedy act, the Hamburg Show, that did in the thinkers, or perhaps the Roaring Twenties simply had no room for Rousseau. Either way, after the early 20th century came and went, new clubs were on the rise.

In 1945, the Glee Club released its first album, “Swarthmore Sings,” and in 1951, a comedy troupe called Skits-o-phrenia hit campus. But these attempts were soon considered blase as Swatties turned radical: protest groups formed and fell throughout the 1960s, their activism growing braver and brasher until in 1971 it culminated in the formation of the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI. According to a Phoenix article published 20 years later, the students of the Citizens Committee broke into the FBI’s office in Media, stole documents that implicated the FBI in the surveillance of Swarthmore dorms and facilities and released them to the public. Now that’s bold.

Swarthmore clubs didn’t die down, either. When South Africa’s apartheid regime entered the global spotlight in 1982, students of the Anti-Apartheid Committee and the Student Council held demonstrations and sit-ins until the college divested its stock in all related companies.

When divestment was complete in 1990, however, Swarthmore had become a calmer campus. Revealingly, the most controversial student institution was the later-to-be-revealed-hoax group “Swarthmore Celibacy Society”, which in 1990 nearly convinced Student Council to mandate a three-foot rule at parties and establish Cold Shower Days. Swarthmore Safewalk ensured in 1989 that students got from Parrish to Willets mugger-free. In 1987, The Phoenix reported (hilariously) on the Hip Hop Education Project, an SBC-funded and Student Council-chartered group that encouraged edification about “Hip Hop, a form of music related to rap.” It was the heyday of safety-conscious, culturally clueless white people. It was the early ’90s.

The years since then have been characterized by a new generation of student support groups: notable names include the Hispanic Organization for Latino Awareness, which became Enlace, the Swarthmore Asian Organization and the Swarthmore Queer Union, all of which today boast 15 years of history. The one-hit wonders that didn’t make it — but maybe should have — include 1993’s Body Image Support Program, 2000’s poverty-ending Empty the Shelters and the Native American Students Association.

Swarthmore’s support networks are wide-ranging in the scope of students they touch, and its activist organizations, such as the admirably effectual Kick Coke, live up to the standards of their predecessors.

Without sounding too satisfied (after all, why no more College Club?), Swarthmore continues to have a wealth of student organizations that brings out our diverse foundations. Even if the College Republicans aren’t a part of that anymore.

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