Frank '80: U., clubs are too linked

Sally Frank '80, who spent 13 years in court fighting to force the then all-male Ivy Club, Tiger Inn and Cottage Club to admit women, praised the advent of the four-year colleges yesterday but said the University continues to send mixed signals about the clubs.

Now an attorney and professor of law at Drake University, Frank filed her suit during her junior year after her attempts to join Ivy, Tiger Inn and Cottage all failed. Students did not react supportively to her move, she recalled.

"I got obscene phone calls at all hours of the night. I got obscenity on a petition," she said during her lecture. "It was ... day in, day out negativity." Despite such opposition, her suit ultimately succeeded in 1991.

Though she spent so much time fighting for women's right to bicker all of the clubs, she said she now disagrees with the idea of club selectivity. She added that, though "the University has always viewed the clubs as somewhat problematic," it still "institutionalizes the clubs" by organizing intramural sports and meal exchanges or even just plowing Prospect Avenue.

Frank said she sees the new system of four-year colleges as a positive change. "I think the four-year colleges, at a minimum, are important to offer students [as] an alternative," she said.

Frank spoke to an audience of only 10 in the Frist multipurpose room. Her lecture had been postponed for an hour at the last moment because Frank's flight from Des Moines, Iowa was delayed.

She began her lecture by outlining the history of the eating clubs and related controversies.

Eating clubs developed during the mid-1800s in response to poor dining options offered by the University. Clubs built houses on Prospect Avenue, moving the system from tavern houses in town to the campus. By 1907, controversy developed when University president Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, advocated dropping eating clubs in favor of residential colleges.

"Woodrow Wilson picked a battle with the eating clubs and lost," explained Frank, who attributed his decision to leave Princeton in part to his failure with the eating clubs.

Bicker has been periodically plagued by controversy stemming both from its selectivity and from issues of discrimination. In 1958, several years after Princeton expanded the number of Jewish students in its undergraduate body, the clubs pledged that every bickering student would be accepted into a club. But 25 students were denied admittance, 15 of whom were Jewish. This led to charges of anti-Semitism, with the ensuing debate receiving national coverage.

"The selectivity of the clubs is a frequent issue," noted Frank.

When Princeton went coed in 1969, most of the eating clubs followed, Frank said. By 1979, all of the clubs except Ivy, Tiger Inn and Cottage had female members.

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She estimated that about two-thirds of her class joined an eating club. It was widely expected, she said, that all of the men who bickered the five selective clubs would be offered a spot. "There was a real sense that they promoted sexism on campus," she said.

"The people most likely to join [the clubs] were the least likely to want to challenge them," Frank added. "I needed to challenge them ... I felt this was an issue I could take on myself without a lot of organization."

Frank was heavily involved in activism during her time at the University, working for a women's studies program, lobbying for an increase in the number of tenured women and supporting South African divestment and worker's rights. She said her effort to reform the eating clubs was a logical addition to this list.

She encouraged today's students to continue her efforts to reform the club system.

"I recognize it's not my Princeton, it's your Princeton," Frank said. "But I want you recognize that students have caused the eating clubs to change ... You've got to decide what you want, but you need to stand up for it."