Princeton Woman Files Charge Against All-Male Eating Clubs

A woman undergraduate at Princeton University who was denied admission to the three all-male eating clubs there has filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights charging the clubs with sex discrimination.

Sally B. Frank, a junior, said yesterday she filed the complaint last month when the Cottage Club and the Tiger Inn refused to allow her to take part in the interview process and the Ivy Club rejected her after an interview.

Frank also named the university in her complaint, saying Princeton supports the clubs by organizing cooperative food-buying and scheduling the interviews for prospective members.

"We cannot allow semi-private institutions to run social life here," Frank said. "The eating clubs foster a sense of elitism and racism, as well as sexism," she added.

R. Claire Guthrie, assistant legal counsel for Princeton, said yesterday the clubs are separately incorporated and the relationship between them and the university is not significant enough to classify them as public institutions.

"They are private clubs; she has no case," Guthrie said.

Membership

Howard S. Lewis, president of the Tiger Inn, said yesterday, "The clubs are private and it is up to us to decide who will be admitted."

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to Harvard University, said yesterday private clubs in Massachusetts can also choose their membership on the basis of sex. He added, however, that because the clubs at Princeton provide regular food and housing services, "they play a much more integral part in undergraduate life than do our final clubs."

Henry A. Callaway '80, president Harvard's Fox Club, said yesterday although the final clubs cooperate with the University and are responsible to Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, they are still "independent and completely private."

"There are no grounds for a similar complaint against us," Callaway said.