FEW PEOPLE will disagree with the Augusta National Golf Club’s decision to allow women to join as members (“Augusta finally joins golf’s inclusive movement,” Sports, Aug. 21). Even though women were allowed to play as non-member guests previously, for many women golfers, this was a long-time goal and an avenue to circles of power and influence in the business world.
In a similar fashion, one might hope that many of the private women’s colleges in the US will open their admission doors to the best and the brightest of those men who might want to pursue the same opportunities that allowed Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton to become secretaries of state as graduates of Wellesley College. After all, given that these colleges, (unlike the Augusta course) receive millions of dollars of federal funds, why should they be allowed to exclude one-half of the population from their campuses?
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At the national level, the growing numbers of women who are presidents of major universities and colleges that are coeducational raises the question once again: Why do we still need all women’s colleges in today’s society?