Harvard is being sued over claims that a crackdown on single-sex social clubs at the Boston-area university amounts to sexual discrimination.

Axar.az reports citing BBC.

A number of sororities and fraternities filed lawsuits on Monday challenging a policy Harvard adopted in 2016.

Under the policy, students who join single-sex clubs cannot receive endorsement letters from college deans for postgraduate fellowships.

Harvard said the aim was to help end practices of exclusion at the school.

But the lawsuits allege that Harvard, one of the top-rated and most selective universities in the world, is discriminating against students on the basis of their sex by punishing men and women who join all-male or all female-organisations.