The "country club" mentality of the Ivy League - and other elite private universities like JHU - is perhaps their most sickening and nauseating aspect - but necessary, since it is the only factor that distinguished them from public schools (quality of education is the same). I think this "being one of the boys" club mentality is a distinguishing feature of the US academe - far more pronounced here than in European institutions (which suffer from other problems). I think is the legacy of that scum of all scums, the British gentry.
This is, btw, the main reason why I applied only to public graduate schools and specifically refused to consider the Ivy League. I did not get to Berkeley (my first choice) but I got to Rutgers and CUNY and finally settled for Rutgers. Likewise, I would never join any "fraternity," "faculty club" and the like, whose modus operandi is to create social status by exclusion and entry barriers.
PS. I love the Jacobin tradition of no intermediation between citizen and the state and thus abolishing all clubs and lodges. But it works only when you have a truly representative government.
Wojtek