“Athletic competition builds character in our boys. We do not need that kind of character in our girls, the women of tomorrow.”
Whoa! A judge deciding a pre-Title IX case actually said that. We’ll get to him in a little bit.
In August 1970, Susan Hollander, a sophomore at Hamden High School in Connecticut, started running a mile a day, in preparation for trying out for her school’s track team. The problem? There was no girls track team at her school, so she planned to try out for the boys team.
When school started, she began training with the boys team. The cross country coach was willing to let her compete, and the boys didn’t seem to mind. But the football coach saw her running with the boys and reported her to the athletic director.
“The rules are against that. You have to tell her she can’t work out with you,” the athletic director told her coach, Carl Westberg.*
Going the distance
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) got involved and ruled that Susan couldn’t run with the boys. The CIAC had banned co-ed teams, so if a girl wanted to participate in a particular sport and her school didn’t have a girls team, she couldn’t play.
Fortunately, Susan’s father was a lawyer, and a runner himself. They brought a lawsuit against the Hamden school board. They were joined in the lawsuit by a swimmer at another Connecticut school, Jane Frederickson of Willimantic High School. Their suit was on behalf of all female athletes in the state of Connecticut who wanted to participate in non-contact sports on boys teams.
The next year, in the spring of 1971, a judge dismissed the suit.
“The challenge to win and the glory of achievement, at least for many boys, would lose incentive and become nullified,” wrote Judge John Clark Fitzgerald of allowing girls’ participation.**
Not satisfied with that pronouncement, Judge Fitzgerald continued with the statement that I started my post with, one that has become infamous post-Title IX.
“Athletic competition builds character in our boys. We do not need that kind of character in our girls, the women of tomorrow.***
Eye roll!
No support here
The lawsuit went on to U.S. District Court in New Haven, this time backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. There, in January 1973, the young athletes won the right to compete.
Judge Jan O. Newman limited the victory, however. The girls could compete on a boys team only if there wasn’t a comparable team for girls at the school. The ruling was also considered an experiment that was to last just one year. And — get this! — compliance was up to the administration at each school.
Reaction to the ruling was as breathtakingly tone-deaf as Judge Fitzgerald’s comments.
“If they want to play on my team, they can shower with my team,” huffed one Connecticut basketball coach.****
And, instead of supporting the girls, the head of the CIAC’s Girls Athletic Committee trashed them.
“It’s doubtful that either could be competitive on the same level with the boys,” Arden Curtis sniffed.
Susan Hollander never benefited from the lawsuit she brought. At the time of the court victory, she was a senior, and her school had added a girls spring track team, which she joined. Even before the victory, she was willing to let the hubbub die down.
“I don’t particularly enjoy all the attention,” she told the media.† “I just want to be on a team.”
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* Lori Riley, “Changing A Mind-Set That Kept Girls Out Of Track, Cross Country,” The Hartford Courant (June 26, 2012).
** Judge’s Ruling Keeps Girl Off Cross Country Team” The Hartford Courant (April 1, 1971), p. 27.
*** Shelley Smith. “Not Quite the Game Intended,” Nike is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports. Ed. Lissa Smith (New York: Grove Atlantic, 1998), p. 300.
**** Bob Baird, “CIAC Girls’ Activities Head Opposes Coed Competition,” The Bridgeport Post (January 26, 1973), p. 32. Arden Curtis’s quote comes from this article as well.
† Hartford Courant, p. 27.