Frank ’80, coeducation activist, recounts fight to admit women to Ivy, TI

Sally Frank ’80, who successfully sued Ivy Club and Tiger Inn to admit women, discussed her 11-year legal battle at a lecture this Monday.

Currently a professor at Drake Law School and an Iowa representative to the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union, Frank opened up the lecture with the history of the University’s eating club and coeducation because she said that she believes the history best helps to explain the context of the lawsuit.

The University’s secret societies, she said, were precursors to fraternities. In 1872, the University expelled a few students for forming and joining these secret societies, which eventually led to the introduction of University-approved, all-male eating clubs in 1879.

In 1969, the University began accepting women for the first time, and Frank herself started her time at the University in 1976.

She said that in light of the change to coeducation, most eating clubs also turned co-ed — with the exception of Ivy Club, Tiger Inn and Cottage Club.

The University itself, however, made efforts to accommodate women on campus.

“They added more women’s bathrooms, added locks,” she said. “They put all of the women in one dorm, surrounded by proctors. They also promised the alumni that the admittance of women would not decrease the admittance of men, expanding class size.”

Frank noted that the male alumni were not pleased with the changes, but the women kept actively pursuing basic issues, such as establishing a women’s studies program.

“What many of us saw is that by being all-male, the eating clubs by definition had sexism to it, and that radiated onto the campus,” Frank further said.

She said that she agreed that the eating clubs were not anti-women, especially for club-related activities. However, she also said she remembered that the social chair of Cottage Club at the time compared women to pizza — “when we want them, we send out for them.”

“The fact that he wouldn’t think twice when saying something like that was a symbol of how bad the problem was,” she said.

Frank bickered three times during her time at the University. The first time, she marked herself as male in the registration form. The second time, she marked neither male nor female.

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The first time, she was denied permission to bicker the then-all-male eating clubs, and the executive director of American Civil Liberties Union in New Jersey offered that she bring a lawsuit against them.

When she first brought the case against the three eating clubs in 1979, it was a public accommodations case, based on discrimination on sex.

She was not successful in her first attempt and had to refile multiple times.

Frank said she was harassed and threatened on campus through phone calls and even during lectures.

“Butyou can’t get me not to act just because I’m intimidated,” she said.

Hoping to decrease the level of anger, Frank said thatshe gave the eating club presidents a warning every time she took a step further in the legal process.

The final time she filed the lawsuit, after having been denied before, she paid more attention to her oral arguments and practiced them. Her arguments revolved around the distinction between eating clubs and fraternities and the fact that eating clubs, despite being private institutions, were intrinsically tied to and could not exist without the University.

At this point, she had already graduated from the University and was attending law school.

On July 3, 1990, the state’s highest court ordered that all eating clubs be co-ed. Before the court decision, Cottage had already opened its membership to women.

According to Frank, one of the remaining two eating clubs appealed, but the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case. The club’s reasoning behind the appeal was that the decision was a violation on its civil rights.

On social activism, Frank encouraged the audience to react to the issues.

“It’s nice to see people interested in the story of the case and history of the University and what it can mean to your struggle to change the school,” Frank told her audience.

She also explained that sexism has not disappeared on campus and that she cannot imagine that it would anywhere in society.

“What I’m asking you to do is keep your eyes open,” she said. “The only way to get better is if you take a stand — either by organizing a group or as an individual. Each of you can make a change, even though it may be a long struggle.”

She noted that the fact that Ivy's president could be a woman is evidence of the change she brought.

“Don’t sit back and let someone else do it, or think it’s not worth it,” she said.

She emphasized that inaction is not the correct way to fight inequality, not only because there are opponents, but also because nobody will realize an issue is an issue until someone brings it to light and demands action.

The lecture, titled “A Frank Talk About the Eating Clubs,” was co-sponsored by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society and the Women’s Center and took place at8 p.m.in the Whig Senate Chamber.

Frank is also scheduled to participate in a panel on “Effective Activism” with Princeton Student Activiststhis Tuesdayat8 p.m.in Terrace Club.