Welll,they did say "wherever WE find it",not wherever YOU find it.If they can't see it it isn't there,I guess.

Now wait a second. The fricking Masters has a "moral obligation" to oppose discrimination but Boalt Hall -- one the nation's elite law schools -- doesn't?

Murphy seems to make light of the comparison, a major championship vs. a woman's lounge. But bias is either wrong or it isn't. Bias isn't made right merely because it occurs in a relatively obscure setting. (I don't think it's necessary to ponder the reaction to a group of Boalt students setting up a white-only lounge.)

So, Murphy is too glib by half. But it's great that you would expose this little bit of hypocrisy.

Of course the morality is the same, but Murphy exposes the thought process by which any issue can be spun to favor a narrow agenda. The phrase today is "moral obligation". We've seen the ambiguous term "affirmative action" take on more and more baggage. To oppose quotas is racist.

As a past president of the Boalt Hall Women's Association, your comments regarding the Women's Lounge certainly ring as unoriginal. You state, "for some reason I can't find any signs of a men's association or a men-only lounge." To clarify this issue for you, I refer you to a similarly-minded group of men, who in 2000, started the Boalt Hall Men's Association, with the hope of getting their "own" space. Unfortunately, the BHMA never made it past their first few meetings, which consisted largely of Frisbee and kegs.

You ask that someone please explain how the women's lounge is different from the formerly all-male eating clubs at Princeton University that were in effect in the late 1970's. The Women's Lounge is used in part by women who are breast feeding or pumping, as well as by women who use to space to study at late at night. Given the privacy issues for women who are breast feeding and the dramatic statistics of sexual assaults on campuses across America, this strikes me as rather unobjectionable. To my knowledge, there is no similar rationale that supports excluding women from dinner clubs in Princeton or African American students from "all-white campus facilities" (the examples you cite as comparable).

Out here in the real world, women oftn breast feed in public--I have and the world didn't stop turning. I nursed in cafes, my office, department stores--where ever the kid was hungry. Maybe female law students should spend more time in the real world rather in the sheltered confines of the Ladies' Lounge, and then a natural action like breastfeeding woulnd't seem so strange. Hiding away behind the "Girls Only" sign doesn't solve anything--unaless you like portraying yourself as a victim of big scary men!

Well Renee, I'm not sure why originality should be the issue here.

In fact, I'm not advocating that there should be a men-only lounge, only that there should not be an exclusive women's lounge. For one, I've always valued my interactions with women as friends, schoolmates and colleagues, and a men-only space wouldn't be interesting to me personally. But more importantly, I think the notion of "separate but equal" facilities in public establishments is at the very least -- how did even Trent Lott put it -- "a discarded policy of the past"?

What the BHWA member's lounge does have with the Princeton eating clubs and racially segregated facilities is that they are all primarily about creating spaces for social interaction where some students can physically exclude others on the basis of innate characteristics. That seems to be inimical to the function of a university, especially for a graduate program where social interaction leads to work product that influences public policy.

I would imagine there are many ways to accommodate the other needs without also creating a social lounge that deliberately excludes 40% of the student body. "A private space for breastfeeding?" give me a break. People in the Bay Area breastfeed in public. My wife did, and so does everybody else we know.

In the grand scheme of injustice in the world this is not high on the list. I raise this issue partly because I find it amusing to hear the hypocritical and specious arguments of those who advocate some forms of blatant discrimination while campaigning against others.

Rene, remember:

Some Harvard men, stalwart and hairy,
Drank up several bottles of sherry;
In the Yard around three
They were shrieking with glee:
"Come on out, we are burning a fairy!"

Stefan,

Can't you see? The difference between the Women's Lounge and an all-male eating club is crystal clear. Four legs good, two legs bad.

i cannot believe the statement she made today about the women in the military i feel this is a completley different issue, and to use this statement to try and get what she wants is totally out of line and very cold on her part seems to me this women has no compassion for anything.
men have the right to have their own private club if they wish to, is seems women want to pick and choose what they want. she needs to get a life and fight for causes that count like breast cancer and other women issues.
tradition in america has really gone down hill because of all these activist groups, no wonder men do not respect women much anymore look how they act, she and her lesbian followers may not care but me as a women i care about being treated with respect. i like having doors opened for me and a chair pulled out for me.
martha needs to get a life and leave others alone.

i am back, this is not a moral issue. if you want to talk moral issue bring prayer back in schools and leave Gods name on everything.
that is a moral issue and fight to get the devil out of this world.
she is evil. not moral