Would Harvard University ban Harvard University, if given the chance?

After all, the Ivy’s proposed ban on fraternities, sororities and single-gender organizations like the iconic “final clubs” is a shocking example of hypocrisy given the exclusive nature of the school.

Harvard’s Committee on the Unrecognized Single-Gender Social Organizations (USGCO), a panel of University faculty, recommended banning the clubs in the name of equality: “The Committee considered the importance of allowing our students to select their own social spaces and friends, but we also recognize principles such as inclusiveness and equality, which many members of the Harvard community consider of paramount importance to our mission.” Inclusivity is more important to Harvard than the freedom of free association.

And while they do admit that some students in these exclusive organizations “report a profound sense of belonging” and “feel ‘at home,’” as well as “sheltered from the typical stresses of academic life,” and “report making steadfast friends,” their conclusion focuses on those that feel left out: “Their sense of belonging, however, comes at the expense of the exclusion of the vast majority of Harvard undergraduates. Of course, that is the definition of selective-membership clubs: some belong, some don’t.”

The logic seems to go like this: if not everybody can experience belonging, then no one should.

But the school doesn’t practice what it preaches. In 2016, Harvard received 37,307 applicants but accepted only 2,080. That’s less than 6 percent acceptance for incoming students. High-school students work hard for years to achieve the grades and test scores, to say nothing of the extra-curricular activities like sports or volunteering, they think might catch the eye of Harvard’s admissions counselors — mostly in vain.

The College Scorecard lists the average ACT score of accepted students as between the 98th and 99th percentile. Harvard only takes the best students into its halls. The school wears this anti-inclusivity as a badge of honor, but tells its students those same values are a mark of shame.

But it gets even worse. Some of these students may have been rejected because of their race. The nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions is suing the university for “racially and ethnically discriminatory policies and procedures in administering the undergraduate admissions program at Harvard College.” The group argues in the complaint against the university: “Harvard’s racial preference for each student (which equates to a penalty imposed upon Asian-American applicants) is so large that race becomes the ‘defining feature of his or her application.’”

By Harvard’s standards, then, the final clubs are practically a model of inclusion — and certainly less given to bigotry and racial preference. Perhaps when it comes to exclusion, Harvard simply doesn’t want any competition? Before banning fraternities, Harvard should get the plank out of its own eye and stop profiling incoming students.

As for the other problems that the committee cited, underage drinking and sexual assault, they are not necessarily linked to the fraternity and club culture, and are still a problem at schools that have already banned fraternities. According to a Washington Post study, Williams College had the fifth highest occurrence of sexual assaults in 2014 with 8.9 rapes per 1,000 students, and Bowdoin College ranked seventh highest with 8.3 rapes per 1,000.

This shows that a frat ban doesn’t solve the problem of campus rape: Both schools have prohibited fraternities for more than 20 years yet lead the nation in occurrences of sexual assaults. Sexual assaults are a cultural problem, not a fraternity problem.

Underage drinking is also cited as a reason for banning fraternities, but the administration isn’t blameless here either: such activity often goes unpunished. Students caught drinking underage are given a warning. If Harvard wants a campus where underage students don’t drink, the administration has to make it clear that such activities will not be tolerated and dealt with severely enough to deter students from breaking the law. Banning single-gender organizations won’t do it.

Instead of demanding made-up rights like equality and exclusivity, it would be much better for Harvard to work on fixing its own discriminatory policies and create better policies to crack down on actual problems like underage drinking and sexual assault — genuinely dangerous lawbreaking. Being left out isn’t a crime, but maybe Harvard’s hypocrisy should be.