B.C. Finally Takes A Stand
After explaining to the student, Duane Naquin, that she operated a “women-only” classroom (since women, Daly believes, tend to censor themselves in mixed-gender environments), Naquin called the Center for Individual Rights. CIR threatened to sue the college if Naquin were not admitted promptly.
In a state of panic, no doubt, the administration went to Daly and in effect told her to either change her policy or get out. Daly applied for a leave of absence, as she has done in the past when the college has complained about her teaching methods, but this time, with a suit at stake, the college didn't bite. Her course details were eliminated from the catalog and BC announced that she had resigned. Claiming she had done no such thing, Daly sued BC for breach of contract — she, of course, had tenure.
Oppressive Catholic Church
Shortly before the court date was to arrive, Daly and the college reached a settlement, the details of which were not to be revealed by either party. But Daly could not leave well enough — and, presumably, many thousands of dollars — alone. A few weeks ago, Gretchen Van Ness, Daly's lawyer, told the press, “We are confident that, after hearing all of the testimony, the jury would have ruled in our favor and found that Professor Daly's tenure rights and academic freedom had been trampled.”
But tenure rights, whatever those are, presumably do not include refusing to teach half of the student body of a given school based only on their gender. And as for Daly's claim that her contract has somehow been breached, well, it's hard to imagine that her contract says she can do any such thing.
In fact, the legal outcome that Van Ness predicted seems highly unlikely. Even with courts as liberal as those in Massachusetts, it is hard to believe that a jury would have sympathized with a woman who was refusing to teach men on a co-ed campus. Leaving aside the fact that BC has an official nondiscrimination policy, the provisions of Title IX — championed by feminists like Daly herself in order to combat discrimination against women — would prevent any sort of policy like Daly's from passing the smell test.
In a way, though, it is hardly surprising that Daly and her lawyer believe they would have succeeded in court. Looking through her ouevre, if you can call it that, it's clear that Daly's thought has not undergone the slightest evolution since she began ranting about the deceptive phallocracy embodied in, among other things, the oppressively patriarchal Catholic Church over 30 years ago.
Grand Conspiratorial Victimhood
Most modern feminist scholars have to contend with other voices in academia, like those of the “equality feminists,” even if they disagree with them. Mary Daly, however, seems largely oblivious to the failure of radical feminism to appeal to college students. Instead, she still regularly voices her thoughtful opinion that men “have nothing to offer but doodoo.” And her biggest fans in the world outside academia include Roseanne Barr — a woman whose attitudes are hardly thought of as cutting edge.
Unwilling to give up on her cause celebre, Daly is now on a speaking tour called “Rekindling the Fires of Feminist Fury.” But the flames have been out for a while. Women don't really face discrimination in college (where they now make up well over 50 percent of the population). Offices are becoming more and more flexible, offering women opportunities to work from home while raising children and providing daycare when they do come in. The average woman walking down the street does not believe she is some kind of victim of a grand conspiratorial phallocracy.
It is ludicrous that for a quarter of a century, Boston College has allowed Daly's shenanigans to continue. It would have been tremendously satisfying to see her lose her grand battle in court rather than to have the administration give her some under-the-table lucrative pension to make her leave quietly. Still, as befits Women's History Month, let us give thanks for women everywhere: Mary Daly is finally history.
(This article can also be found on National Review Online.)
