Losier said that he, too, believes the clubs will eventually admit women.

“But I don’t know if it will solve the problems of privilege and exclusivity that also affect how students view the clubs,” he wrote in an e-mail after the meeting. “Having women in a final club would hopefully do a great deal to prevent sexual violence from occurring there, but would co-ed clubs be enough to give all students, not just women, a more equal footing on Harvard’s social landscape?”

Others proposed that the University should create a student center, or some form of alternative social space.

“I think Harvard needs to do something big about [the lack of student space], which isn’t to give female final clubs space, but space for everyone,” said Ilana J. Sichel ’05, co-president of RUS. “The University cannot entirely distance itself from this problem.”

Officially, Harvard administrators have maintained that their hands are tied regarding the final clubs since they are private institutions.

Though no plans for further concrete action were made yesterday, some called for a similar meeting to be held with final club leaders. Others insisted a broader meeting, engaging the entire student body, would be necessary to evoke actual change.

After the talk, Watson, a Crimson columnist who addressed final clubs in her last piece, said she had some frustrations with “talking about things and not acting.”

She said she personally favors the activism of the late 1980s, citing the discrimination complaint filed by Lisa J. Schkolnick ’88 against the Fly Club and the formation of Stop Withholding Access Today (SWAT), an organization that pressured the final clubs to let women join.

“Students [today] really are at a loss on how to deal with this issue,” she said. “I think in the ’80s, there was a lot more mobilization. People were just less afraid of speaking out and acting out.”

—Staff writer Nalina Sombuntham can be reached at sombunth@fas.harvard.edu.