Kennedy a member of a "Men only" club?

[Sydnie]

:wtf: My local news just did a tease about it for their noon program. Anyone heard this before?

[seabeyond]

1. our country club has men only. they also have womens only,

club room where they gather to play cards. so?????

[Sydnie]

4. they haven't covered it yet but they made it sound like

it was more like CAP than a country club. Will report what they report.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. a social club only

OWL was not political, but even when women were admitted to Harvard, they stayed all male, and were disbanded in the '90s, I believe....at least they lost any accredidation with the college then.

[Dorian Gray]

27. That's not a men's only club, though....

A men's only club is one that allows only men. I think I heard that he resigned from the club, though. (Today, after the story came out abou thsi belonging to said club.)

[carolinalady]

2. yep through Harvard I think-he says he is going to break all ties.

[Wickerman]

3. When he was at Harvard in the 60's, I'd guess

http://www.gopbloggers.org/mt/archives/002907.html

Hold your nose for this source:

Conservative activists are eager to point out that Sen Ted Kennedy was on shaky ground accusing the Judge Alito of associating with people opposed to the inclusion of women in private institutions, the WASHINGTON TIMES is fronting on Thursday.

The eight-term senator belonged to an all-male social club -- the Owl -- at Harvard University. The Owl refused to admit women until it was forced to do so during the 1980s, according to records kept by the HARVARD CRIMSON, the student newspaper.

[Caution]

6. They still don't seem to understand that the underlying principle is wrong

Whether Ted Kennedy, Alito or I get involved with these groups, we are wrong to do so and it is right to ask how and why they became involved and whether or not they personally subscribe to the values (or lack thereof) these groups put forth.

[Wickerman]

Agree

of course, this was Harvard in the 1950's. Hell, as noted below females weren't even allowed in the undergrad library until the 60's!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

23. When Kennedy was involved, there was no controversy

OWL was a social club, and Harvard was a university for men only. OWL never lobbied to keep women or blacks out, like CAP did. To my mind, that's a huge difference.

[Wickerman]

7. The 50's, sorry

http://www.townhall.com/blogs/capitolreport/TimChapman/story/2006/01/11/182059.html

This is circulating on the Hill:


May 24, 1981 NYT story says Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club only revised its membership policy in the 1970's, when it was "opened to everyone, including women" This seems to mean that if you were a member of Hasty Pudding in the 1950's you belonged to an all-white, all male club. "The Education of Edward Kennedy", a 1972 biography by Burton Hersh and approved by the Kennedy family, identifies Ted Kennedy, Harvard class of 1956, as a member of Hasty Pudding.... Radcliffe was Harvard’s sister school. Didn’t students at the sister school want to be members of the Hasty Pudding Club?


all male memberships at Harvard clubs - by doggone, Jan 12 2006 09:45 AM

As a Radcliffe student, who graduated in 1971, I and all of the other Radcliffe students attended classes with our Harvard classmates and received a Harvard degree. So Radcliffe was more than a sister school. It was part of Harvard. But it was also a very male chauvinist establishment. When I was a freshman, the Harvard Lampoon, the Signet Society (Harvard literary society)and most Harvard clubs did not admit women as policy. I was allowed to serve lunch to the men of the Signet Society as a paid waittress (along with the other Radcliffe students who made money and got free lunch this way). And a friend was hired by the Lampoon to do some creative work for them, but had to arrive and leave through the back door. So Kennedy's membership in an all-male club in 1956 wasn't exactly unusual. Harvard didn't even allow women in the Harvard undergraduate library until the 1966-67 school year.

[mattclearing]

5. He just quit it. n/t

[sabra]

8. I guess they read Sludge?

http://www.gopbloggers.org/mt/archives/002907.html

Ted Kennedy Joined an Exclusive Men-Only Club
The hypocrisy and grandstanding is nauseating.

Conservative activists are eager to point out that Sen Ted Kennedy was on shaky ground accusing the Judge Alito of associating with people opposed to the inclusion of women in private institutions, the WASHINGTON TIMES is fronting on Thursday.

The eight-term senator belonged to an all-male social club -- the Owl -- at Harvard University. The Owl refused to admit women until it was forced to do so during the 1980s, according to records kept by the HARVARD CRIMSON, the student newspaper.

[liberal N proud]

9. He did it first

So it is OK right?

[Sydnie]

10. I never said it was ok

I hadn't heard it before until the tease on the news.

[liberal N proud]

18. My point is that this is the fundies method of covering for their

corrupt leaders.
Weather true or not one of the first defenses the fundies will put up for the actions of the Republican Congress members is that the Democrats did it too. To which I always reply. You touched me first, like a bunch of 2 year olds.

[Sydnie]

22. oh, gotcha

They have done two teasers for the story but haven't covered it at all yet. Curious.

[hedgehog]

11. Check the dates before making any judgments

1950 was way different from 1970 from 1980. I recently watched the movie 9to5 and couldn't get over how dated it was. When it came out c 1980, it was really cutting edge with its feminist (and humanist) proposals for a better workplace. It is really hard to fathom how much we've changed and how quickly, and I lived though it.

Another key point to make. Kennedy learned and changed with the times. Alito tried to stop the changes and go backwards.

[Sydnie]

15. All very good points to consider n/t

[gkhouston]

12. interesting that someone would be bothering to spread this smear

just now. Not feeling so secure about Justice Alito after all, are we?

Seems like this has the potential to backfire because it brings the CAP stuff back to the surface and I think Alito's going to suffer in comparison to Kennedy. Kennedy's record in the Senate shows that he's not anti-woman, anti-minority, anti-whatever. Does Alito's record indicate the same?

[JVS]

13. Yeah, I saw on TV that one of clubs he joined in Harvard is male only

[tritsofme]

14. I belonged to a "men only" club in college

They called it a fraternity.

[rox63]

16. Wasn't Harvard men-only back then anyway?

I know Yale didn't admit women until the early 70's. So ANY Harvard club would have been men-only when Kennedy was attending.

[Carni]

17. I heard it was some type of drinking frat type of a club

It sounded like an animal house type of an affair, with no ideology involved... just keggers and college hijinx-- at least that is what Toobin said on CNN last week.

[meegbear]

19. Well since that make Kennedy ineligible to be on the Supreme Court ...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

20. OWL-a club he belonged to when

Harvard was an all-male institution, back in the '50s. Teddy graduated in '56.

[Sydnie]

24. Reported now

"Kennedy Grilled Alito" ... Kenndey led the charge to prove that the group Alito belonged to was discriminatory.

Owl club - Kennedy joined the club - fraternal organization - Harvard was no co-ed at the time, but he keeps giving about $100 a year. He says he will resign and that he couldn't be a justice because of it. The Owl club was removed from Harvard in '84, citing a federal law championed by Kennedy.

The reporter was Andy Hiller and it was an OPINION piece, not reported as NEWS but as an opinion hit piece. Big balls considering this was a Massachusetts station.

[karynnj]

26. The problem is the reporting

They say the problem with CAP was "discriminatory" and Kennedy's club - all male. The hope is you equate them. But the problem with CAP was the policies it espoused - which were discriminatory.
So, they really aren't equivilent. Alito listed CAP on his Reagan administration job application. Did Kennedy win his Senate seat by listing the OWL as a credential?

[shance]

25. There are scores of gender specific clubs world wide. Not the issue.

The issue is CAP is an organization with a specific agenda TO discriminate and exclude. That is the core of their mission. That is what their primary concern is based upon: exclusion of others who are different from them.

Private social clubs which are gender specific have the right to include or exclude whomever they wish, however their missions are not to promote agendas which further discriminate like what is apparent with CAP's.

[Broke In Jersey]

28. He was stupid for quiting the club at this time.

Makes him look guilty for belonging to it. There was no major reporting on the membership in it until he quit. Would have been smarter to do it a few weeks down the road when everyone has moved on.