Syracuse officials refused to allow a female...

Syracuse officials refused to allow a female student reporter to enter the locker room after Saturday’s football game against Penn State and forced her to decide whether all other reporters also would be banned.

Suzanne Yohannan, an assistant sports editor of the Daily Collegian, the Penn State student newspaper, said she was given the option shortly after Penn State’s 27-21 victory.

“I was approached by a Syracuse sports official who said that the players could be brought out of the locker room and the locker room itself would be closed to everyone, or the locker room would be open to all of the press except me,” Yohannan said.

She said felt pressured by the offer from Larry Kimball, sports information director at Syracuse.

Yohannan, 21, a senior English major from Allentown, Pa., was accompanied by a male reporter from her newspaper, and he went into the locker room with other male reporters.

Kimball said the university has a policy: “The locker room is either open to everybody or no one.”

But, he said, the team bans women.

Penn State’s locker room is closed to all reporters. Players are taken into a separate room for postgame interviews.