Battling stag/nation

Radical hag Mary Daly stands up to Boston College for forcing coed classes.

By Jill Priluck

Mar 18, 1999 | Mary Daly sits in her one bedroom apartment, surrounded by bookish clutter. A trash can decorated with a map of the globe lies sideways on the floor and a candle drips on the mantle. These are the marks of a hag who doesn't give a rat's ass for convention or appearance.

Two of Daly's students sit on the couch in a sea of mail. "I'm really disgusted," says senior Kate Heekin after reading an unsigned letter, postmarked Nashville, Tenn. An excerpt: "Phony cunts such as yourself hyped feminist laws in the past to make a name for yourself, and sell a few books, but now see that those laws are a double-edged sword and have come back to bite you in the ass ... Get lost, you old senile cunt! You're just a fuckin' man-hater because some guy banged your brains out years ago and then dumped you."

"Wait, here's a nice older male who wrote to the [Boston] Globe," Daly offers, reading aloud from the newspaper. "Thank you. How can I help support your cause?"

Heekin and her roommate, Megan Niziol, are wearing navy blue T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Where's Mary Daly?!" in white type.

"When we picked them up," says Heekin, referring to the shirts, "the guy working behind the desk said, 'Oh, just so you know, the dean of student development called us about these shirts to see if you guys are going to protest or something, so you might get a call. It's just a warning.'"

The T-shirts are a problem?

"Everything's a problem. You know, feminism. Period."

At the cusp of the millennium, Boston College theology professor Mary Daly, a world-renowned feminist academic, finds herself at the age of 70 in a '90s style fight: trying to preserve female-only classes in the face of opposition from a right-wing group and her own college.

In early December, on the last day of class for the fall semester, Daly received a telephone call from Boston College Theology Department Chairman Donald Dietrich. He told Daly that senior Duane Naquin was registered for one of her spring courses, "Introduction to Feminist Ethics," even though Naquin had never taken a women's studies course, a prerequisite for the class.

Daly didn't flinch. She had told Naquin in September what she's been telling male students for the last 30 years: that she would teach him separately. Daly had been through similar flare-ups before, most recently in 1989, when she opted for a semester's leave rather than teach two male students. The flames eventually died down.

But this time Daly wasn't merely engaged in a tête-à-tête with her employer, Boston College. Dietrich informed Daly that this time she had no choice but to accept the male student. Daly also says it was during this call that she first learned that this student was being represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm in Washington. In an Oct. 16 letter sent to Boston College President William P. Leahy, the center threatened to sue the Jesuit college for violating Title IX, the federal statute banning discrimination in higher education on the basis of sex. Boston College ordered Daly to accept Naquin into her class.

"You can't just see Boston College here in isolation. It's what's motivating them," says Daly, who has since taken a leave of absence. "It's the CIR which is against radical feminism and particularly against women. Boston College is getting rid of the CIR by getting rid of me."

In the month following Dietrich's telephone call, Daly sought the advice of some of her colleagues and decided to take a leave of absence to think things over, effective in January. After fruitless meetings with Boston College, she learned that the school had offered her a retirement package -- a nice way of easing her out of a job. She rejected the offer and in February hired attorney Gretchen Van Ness.

"Professor Daly is deserving of respect and support by this university and they have failed to provide that," Van Ness says, noting that her client has overlapping rights to fair treatment under state and federal statutes, anti-discrimination laws and university policy. "She is unique and a treasure and she has not received the treatment that her stature deserves."

A prolific writer, Daly holds three doctorates and has authored seven books, most recently "Quintessence ... Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto." She's been called the first modern feminist philosopher and counts among her friends anti-pornography "spinster" Andrea Dworkin and actress Roseanne. She has also indulged in a brand of academic wordplay that has made her notorious even among less radical feminist circles, coining such phrases as "stag/nation" and "the/rapist," not to mention the title of her cross-cultural survey of brutality against women's bodies: "Gyn/ecology."

As a stalwart icon of more fiery feminist days, Daly is an ideal target for the Center for Individual Rights, a group that has made eradicating what CIR calls "the feminist worldview" part of its mission.

Next Page: CIR: Defending title IX in order to destroy it

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