Professor recounts encounters with discriminatory university clubs and a state Chief Justice’s objection

4.2.12 WC: 191694 chances.” That was the last I heard, until a few years later when Dean Griswold informed me that the chairman of the overseers subcommittee being asked to review and approve the faculty decision recommending me for tenure, was an active member of “the Club.” I was ready for a fight. But there was no fight. I was approved, the dean later told me, by a unanimous vote. Several years after I began teaching, I was invited to deliver a distinguished named lectureship at a major university. Following my talk, there was a dinner in my honor at the local university club. When I got to the club, there were several women standing outside picketing because it was a men’s only club. I refused to cross the picket line and the dinner had to be moved to a different venue, over the strong objections of the Chief Justice of the State, who was one of the sponsors to the dinner. I had a similar experience in Columbus, Ohio, after I argued an important case on behalf of a local law firm. They invited my female associate and me to have dinner with them at the local university club. When we got there, they asked my associate if she wouldn’t mind walking in through the side door since the main entrance was for men only. Since she was a young associate, she reluctantly agreed, but I refused to let her demean herself. We had lunch at the local McDonald’s. Several years later, I was invited to Australia to give a series of lectures, and the Harvard Club of Sydney asked me to give a luncheon talk to Harvard alumni. I agreed. When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to be speaking at the Australia Club, he advised me that it was closed to Jews, women, and Blacks. I gave the Harvard Club two options: I would keep my commitment and make my speech, but I would speak about why it was wrong for Harvard to hold events at segregated clubs; or they could move the speech and I would give a talk about life at Harvard. They chose the second alternative. When I returned to Harvard, I wrote to the dean and a memo was circulated mandating that henceforth no Harvard professors, speaking on behalf of Harvard, should appear in a segregated venue. When a Jewish country club in Boston asked me to talk, I told them about my policy and declined the invitation. They explained that the club had been established in reaction to the unwillingness of other country clubs in the area to accept Jewish members. I told them that I did not think this justified further discrimination. A few days later, the membership chairman called and told me that, in fact, the club had six non-Jewish members and that it was open to accepting more. I made the speech. A young member approached me following my speech and told me I had been conned, “Sure, we have six non-Jewish members, but they’re all sons-in-law of Jewish members.” I have never spoken at that club again. When I joined the faculty, it was quite small—perhaps two dozen full time professors. (Today there are more than 100, with a student body that hasn’t increased in size.) The entire faculty would meet for lunch every day in a small dining room around a large table presided over by the dean, and in his absence by a senior faculty member. The discussions would revolve around legal issues. The criteria for judging an argument and its maker was its “soundness.” That word still rings in my ear, like my grandmother’s “meturnished.” All faculty nominees had to have “sound” judgment. Their writing had to be “sound,” rather than creative, speculative, quirky or provocative. I was concerned because my views were anything but “sound”—as least as judged by some of the more traditional faculty members. Recently, I told one of my long-time colleagues that when I was choosing between teaching at Harvard and Yale Law Schools, my Yale Law School teacher, mentor and friend, Professor Alex Bickel, who had been turned down for a professorship at Harvard because his views of 78 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017165