Law firm forces Mary Daly's hand - feminist professor sued for disallowing male students - Interview

National Catholic Reporter, March 5, 1999 by Pamela Schaeffer

Feminist author Mary Daly's stormy 33-year career in the theology department at Boston College may be coming to an end. Her nemesis is a single male student who has demanded entrance to one of her women-only classes, challenging her 20-year policy of teaching men separately.

The student, Duane Naquin, is a pro bono client of the Center for Individual Rights, an aggressive, conservative, Washington-based public-interest law firm that has warned Boston College of a possible lawsuit on Naquin's behalf.

Rather than admit the student, Daly asked the university to cancel her spring semester classes. She is on paid leave and, saying she is effectively being forced to retire, is negotiating terms with the university. Daly said she is being "deprived of her right to teach freely."

Daly, who has often clashed with officials of the Jesuit school since she began teaching there in 1996, accused administrators of "caving in" to the law firm. The firm is engaged in a legal assault on affirmative action at universities around the country. In a recent fundraising letter, the center promise to devote "increased energy and resources" to fighting "radical feminism."

Daly a self proclaimed radical feminist, lesbian and "post-Christian," said she is deeply disappointed that Boston College had "buckled under to pressure from a right-wing group. They bully institutions," she said. Daly said she is confident Naquin had no interest in the content of her course in feminist ethics. She remains adamant about her women-only classroom policy.

Federal law

"I am caught in a double bind," she said. "either I go in and teach men who would ruin my classes, or I find a way to negotiate a solution."

Jack Dunn, director of public affairs at Boston College, said Daly's policy violates university policy and federal law. Administrators had not been swayed by the center's involvement and would have taken the student's side regardless, he said. Dunn said a second student had also challenged Daly's policy.

"Our position is that all the educational resources of the university are available to all students regardless of race or gender," he said. "Separate is inherently unequal."

"Federal law backs us, specifically Title IX," he said. "It would be wrong to make an exception." Dunn added, "Mary Daly has a unique perspective, and we think all students, including males, should be able to avail themselves of it."

Dunn said the university is not trying to push Daly out. "I was she rather than us who raised the issue of retirement," Dunn said.

Daly, who has published seven books but been denied full professorship at Boston College, has taught men separately since the late 1970s. She said she uses a time-tested "feminist strategy" of preserving a place where women can talk freely without the presence of men. She offers men separate instruction using the same books and materials as she uses in the class, she said.

Daly said her policy is not anti-male. Rather, she said, it derives from her discovery that women are less focused in her classes when men are involved, directing part of their attention to the way men are reacting to class material.

"I never refused to teach a male," she said. "But after I discovered how the dynamics changed in the classroom, I taught them separately." Usually, she said, just one or two men would be interested.

The university and its male students have tolerated Daly's policy over the years, although it has been one source of her intermittent clashes with school officials. Dunn said Daly's policy had stood because it had gone unchallenged by students. This year, though, Naquin, a senior at the university who signed up for Daly's introductory course in feminist ethics, wasn't buying it. Shortly after Daly explained her teaching policy to him, a letter arrived at Boston College from the Washington-based center threatening legal action unless Daly's classes were opened to men and its client, Naquin, was allowed to attend classes with women in Daly's spring semester course.

The letter was sent in mid-October to Jesuit Fr. William Leahy, president of Boston College, Daly said, but she was not informed of the center's involvement until late December. "Boston College officials sat on it for two-and-a-half months. That didn't leave me time to strategize or consider my options," she said.

Daly said Naquin had lacked the required prerequisite for her course but had nevertheless been admitted by the theology department chair. She said she finds it shameful that Boston College would give in to pressure from "the right wing."

`Diversity a hallmark'

"I am calling on Boston College to do the right thing and stand by faculty and students against assaults that would violate academic freedom," she said. "The right wing is trying to make this an issue of discrimination when it is about refusing to dumb down education and about the right and obligation of faculty not to be forced to accept students in their classes who are not qualified and do not have the prerequisites.

"One of the hallmarks of a great university is that it allows for diversity of methodology," she said.