In my last post, I introduced you to Christine Franklin, whose Title IX lawsuit expanded  the gender equality law to cover sexual  harassment. Although hers was the first successful such lawsuit,  it wasn’t the first.

            Five classmates at Yale University have that honor. In 1977, Ronni Alexander, Margery Reifler, Pamela Price, Lisa Stone and Ann Olivarius sued the university claiming sexual harassment.

            The women didn’t want money — their suit didn’t ask for damages. They merely wanted the university to implement an effective way of addressing sexual harassment and assault. Yale had admitted women eleven years earlier, in 1968, yet their well-being wasn’t being protected.

            The women’s complaints are familiar to almost every female on the planet. Ronni and Margery said they’d been physically harassed by a music teacher and a hockey coach. Pamela said she’d been the victim of what today is called quid pro quo harassment — a political science teacher offered good grades in exchange for sex. Lisa said an English professor had propositioned her and Ann Olivarius said she’d been threatened for helping fellow students pursue complaints.

Five women, five stories

            The details of the complaints were ugly. Ronni was studying music and taking private flute lessons from Keith Brion. He began locking the door of the lesson room, eventually touching and fondling her. One day, after she had bumped her head on a door frame and suffered a concussion, he offered her a ride home, but instead he took her to his apartment and raped her. He forced her into sex a second time on another day.

            Ronni told no one, believing it was her fault somehow. But when she quit music in her sophomore year, she began hearing from other women who quit their music studies. “Oh, me too,” the women would say, with a knowing glance.*

            Margery was manager of Yale’s hockey team. One day, Coach Richard Kentwell grabbed her and began fondling and kissing her. She fled. After this happened a few more times, she quit the team.

            Pamela Price said that her international relations professor, Raymond Duvall, demanded sex in return for a good grade on a paper. “Do I really, really want the A?” she says he began. When she refused, she got a C on the paper and in the course.**

            Lisa also took lessons from Brion, and she arrived one day to find him undressing in the lesson room. She also gave up the flute. Two years later, she was talking with poetry professor Michael Cooke in his office. He put a hand on her knee and suggested making love to her. She fled the room.

            Ann didn’t have her own complaint, but she’d heard plenty of women’s stories. She was incensed that they had no way of seeking justice.

Their point is made

            The women filed suit as Alexander v. Yale University. For daring to speak out, they faced hostility, even from women.

            “There was some sense that the women in the lawsuit were whining about issues they should have expected to face,” said student Betsy Scarf. “We all faced them: before Yale, at Yale, after Yale.”***

            In the end, all but Pamela’s case was thrown out. In a pre-trial hearing, magistrates said Ronni’s and Margery’s cases were moot, because they’d graduated. They said Lisa and Ann had not directly suffered harassment — there was no concept then of a hostile workplace — so they could not sue.

            In Pamela’s case, the courts ruled that she had not proved the quid pro quo deal. “I knew what that was about,” she said. “As an African American woman, I could not say that this white man had done this to me and be believed.”****

            The women all went on to have successful lives and careers. Despite the defeat, they’d made their point. They’d stood up to a powerful university.

            “We attend college to study, not to be playthings or sex objects for male faculty members,” said Phyllis Crocker, then of the grievance committee of the Yale Undergraduate Women’s Caucus.*****

            Sadly, sexual harassment and violence still occurs on college campuses, but thanks to these five women, it is now recognized — and can be addressed — as discrimination under Title IX.  

                                                __________________________

* Nicole Allen, “To Break the Silence,” senior thesis on Alexander  v. Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 2009).

** “To Break,” p. 4.

*** “To Break,” p. 6.

**** “To Break,” p. 6.

***** Excerpts, Alexander v. Yale: Collected Documents from the Yale Undergraduate Women’s Caucus and Grievance Committee (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 1978), p. 19.

Photo: Ronnie Alexander, Ann Olivarius, Pamela Price