ICC votes down 100 percent pledge

December 8, 1961 — The Interclub Committee has voted to drop the guarantee of 100 percent in Bicker, ICC Chairman W. Scott Magargee '62 announced late last night.

A statement on behalf of all sixteen club presidents explained that the clubs' desire for "natural selectivity" and the desire to achieve "total integration" into the club system, twin ideals of the old agreement, had proved "incompatible" in practice.

Furthermore, the completion of Wilcox Hall affords an "attractive and suitable alternative to the club system," removing the "primary purpose" for giving every sophomore a bid.

Therefore, the ICC will not condone, the statement concludes, practices "guaranteeing" 100 percent, though it will try to see that "just consideration" is given to all Bickering.

"Just consideration," Magargee explained after the meeting, implies that the ICC will encourage the Soph Bicker Committee's work of pointing out men who have been passed over in the early stages of the calling period.

It is in no way, he added, a backhanded support of the principle of 100 percent.

The committee also added to the rule on club switching. No undergraduate may change to another club, under the added rule, unless he had received a bid from that club during the regular Bicker process.

The text of the ICC statement follows:

"In former years, the Interclub Committee has attempted to reconcile a system built upon natural selectivity to a desire to achieve total integration in the Bicker process.

"The purposes which underlie such an attempt are based upon an admirable idealism and a feeling of responsibility for fellow students.

"However, it has become increasingly evident in the past few years that the two objectives are in practice incompatible.

"Since the University has provided for the first time an attractive and suitable alternative to the club system in the form of Wilcox Hall, the primary purpose of seeking to obtain bids for all sophomores desiring club membership no longer applies. Therefore, the ICC need no longer support a policy of total integration.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"This group will not condone practices which 'guarantee' bids for all eligible, but, at the same time, it will make every effort to see that just consideration is given to all men Bickering."