Stag Dinners
"We have opposite sexes. Somewhere along the line, somebody has to be able to say this is for males and this is for females."
-Chuck Ritter, former Ann Arbor Pioneer High School Athletic Director1
Title IX was meant to have established equality in sports in 1972, but discrimination continued for many women at the University of Michigan. As late as 1992, the Bob Ufer Quarterback Club still held dinners that banned women, including the mothers of the athletes that were honored at such events. Two graduates of U-M saw this injustice and were determined to stop this violation of civil rights by the Booster Club, which defended itself by emphasizing the importance of tradition.2
Jean Ledwith King, an Ann Arbor attornery, and Lana Pollack, the State Senator for the area at the time, called for the President of the University to renounce the event and cancel his offer to present an award. Though he did not boycott the event, President Duderstadt used his attendance at the event to highlight the prejudice and sexism it represented and made clear in his speech to the attendees that the banquet would no longer be an all-male event in the future.3
1. The Ann Arbor News. Jean Ledwith King Papers 1964-2004, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
2. Jean Ledwith King Papers 1964-2004, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
3. Ibid.