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THE NEWS, page 2
Editorial
Feminists defeat“private”clubs inSupremeCourt
by Gene Koland
Does an indisputably private or
ganization have the right to practice
segregation iri membership and serv
ices? Do such groups have a right to
exclude "undesirables" based on a
doctrine of freedom of association or a
constitutional right to privacy? Or
might even private clubs partake of
public purposes at times, making them
subject to laws that others must obey?
The U. S. Supreme Court, in a
widely-hailed victory for feminists,
unanimously ruled in June that private
organizations are not always free to
practice segregation as they please.
Those stuffy clubs where
overprivileged men swill
brandy, inhale cigar
smoke, and brag about
their sexual and financial
conquests may now be
compelled to admit
women even if they do
consider them undesirable.
Private they might be called, but those
stuffy clubs where overprivileged men
gather to swill brandy, inhale cigar
smoke, and brag about their sexual and
financial conquests among the leather
wing chairs and mahogany paneling
may now be compelled to ■ admit
women and others, even if they do
consider them undesirable.
Few are unaware that segregated
clubs are more than high-priced club
houses for male hierarchs—they're
places where business is often trans
acted. If deals aren't openly consum
mated, at the very least there's net
working—that '80s phrase for a phe
nomenon that's been going on for mil
lennia. The Supreme Court has ruled
that if state and local lawmakers want
to, they can make it illegal to exclude
"undesirables" (women, racial minori
ties, even lesbians and gays if the law is
written that way) from the benefits
extended to others.
Particularly vulnerable to civil
rights regulation are clubs which have
large memberships, which offer serv
ices to the public, which have economic
importance, or which must comply
with local food or liquor licensing
regulations.
Naturally, Henny Youngman and
other male segregationists who at
tacked the Supreme Court decision
didn't do so on the basis that they
wanted to hurt women professionally
or to deny them anything it would
benefit them to have. They argued that
men would be discouraged from con
versing among themselves with their
natural coarseness and frankness were
females permitted in exclusively male
space.
The Supreme Court did specifically
leave open one possible exemption.
Organizations which exist for the pur
pose of furthering a particular ideo
logical position or religious belief can
exclude people who do not share the
required beliefs. For example, an or-
‘T&Xfetts
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Editor: Richard Swanson Editorial Committee:
News Editor:
Gene Koland
Layout and Design:
Karl Stalnaker
. Heinz West
Michael Wilson
Rick Ergle
Joan Evlyn
. Roni Schalman
Doug Zauderer
Contributors:
Peter Dakutis
Charles Haver
Gene Koland
Joseph Marshall
Lee Morris
Nancy Os wall
Chef Thom
Circulation:
John Boyce
Martin Brooks
Rick Ergle
Chet Stahl
Michael Young
ganization might state that its purpose
is to promote the doctrine that women
should occupy an inferior social posi
tion in relation to men, and that might
If someone like
Phyllis Schlafly were to
come along, sharing the
club's low opinion of
women, they 7 d
have to let her in.
effectively keep out most women. But if
someone like Phyllis Schlafly were to
come along and apply for membership,
sharing as she does the club's low opin
ion of women, they'd have to let her in.
In other words, organizations may
enforce uniformity of opinion, but they
must enforce it equally on men and
women, blacks and whites, or upon
whomever else the particular state or
local statute protects.
Most organizations that have been
segregated up to now are planning to
give in to the law of the land with as
much grace as they can muster The
famous Cosmos Club of Washington,
D. C. has already changed its rules.
There was speculation that ofte avid
woman golfer. Associate ‘Justice San-
1“
dra Day O'Conner, might now be inter
ested in membership at the world-
famous Burning Tree Country Club
outside Washington, which has never
allowed women on its links, even as
guests.
A few other clubs have not lost all
hope they can still keep women from
their sacred precincts. Two famous
holdouts, the New York Racquet and
Tennis Club and the Bohemian Club of
San Francisco, are adopting rules that
forbid business deals at the clubs, and
no longer make their facilities available
to corporate functions. (It was the
Bohemians that were portrayed in
Armistead Maupin's 1987 novel Sig
nificant Others as a humorous counter
point to "Wimminwood," a fictitious
music festival based on "actual
practices...in Michigan, California,
Georgia and elsewhere.")
The Court's decision was not unan
ticipated. In two previous unanimous
rulings, the justices ruled that the Jay-
cees (1984) and the Rotary dubs (1987)
must end their practice of excluding
women, or of segregating them into a
see Clubs pg. 3
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