Feminist Boston College Professor Must Admit Men to Class or Resign

BOSTON —  A radical feminist professor at Boston College has been given an ultimatum from the school: Admit men to her classes or stop teaching.

Theologian Mary Daly lets only women take her courses.

Daly, whose seven major books, including “Outercourse,” have made her a pioneer in feminist circles, has said she won’t back down. Opening her classes to men would compromise her belief that women tend to defer to a man whenever one is present, she said.

“Boston College has wronged me and my students by caving into right-wing pressure and depriving me of my right to teach freely and depriving them of the opportunity to study with me,” she said in a telephone interview.

Daly took a leave from the Jesuit college this semester rather than bow to demands that she admit senior Duane Naquin into her class in feminist ethics.

Naquin, who claimed discrimination, is backed by the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative law firm in Washington whose lawsuit ended affirmative action at the University of Texas. The firm sent a letter to Boston College in the fall threatening legal action if Daly did not relent. Neither Naquin nor the law firm immediately returned calls for comment.

Daly, a self-described radical feminist, has argued that Naquin did not have the prerequisite of another feminist studies course. College officials said a second male student also complained of discrimination.

Daly has rejected a retirement offer from the college, the Boston Globe reported.

Daly, who is 70, taught only men when she first arrived at the Newton campus in 1966. The college of arts and science did not begin admitting women until 1970. In the early ‘70s, she said, she observed problems in her coed classes.

“Even if there were only one or two men with 20 women, the young women would be constantly, on an overt or a subliminal level, giving their attention to the men because they’ve been socialized to nurse men,” she said.