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    Women Also Serve: Duarte Invites Women to Join Rotary
    Women Also Serve: Duarte Invites Women to Join Rotary
    Women Also Serve: Duarte Invites Women to Join Rotary
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Women Also Serve: Duarte Invites Women to Join Rotary

    By Sylvia Whitlock

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    The Rotary Club of Duarte, California, was chartered in District 530 in 1952. But just before its twenty-fifth birthday in 1976, the Duarte club violated Rotarys bylaws by inviting women to join, ultimately causing its charter to be unceremoniously revoked by Rotary International. Undeterred, the club renamed itself the Ex-Rotary Club of Duarte and its members continued on their quest not to be outcasts of one of the greatest humanitarian organizations in the world.

    Filled with facts and personal anecdotes, the first woman president in Rotary International shares a fascinating glimpse into the journey of the Duarte club. Sylvia Whitlock, who was present as the club enlisted help from the American Civil Liberties Union and took the case through the California court system until a landmark decision in May 1987, details the circumstances of the case as women struggled to attain equal rights, her role in the process, conversations with participants and onlookers, and the benefits she has gained personally through her own membership.

    Women Also Serve shares a compelling history of the Duarte Rotary Club and its lofty undertaking to recruit women into its chapter through the perspective of one who was there.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMar 9, 2015
    ISBN9781491760581
    Women Also Serve: Duarte Invites Women to Join Rotary
    Author

    Sylvia Whitlock

    Sylvia Whitlock, PhD is a retired educational administrator. She was an incoming Duarte Rotary president when the United States Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling against the exclusion of women in service clubs. Sylvia resides in LaVerne, California, where she is an active member of the Rotary Club.

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      Book preview

      Women Also Serve - Sylvia Whitlock

      WOMEN ALSO SERVE

      DUARTE INVITES WOMEN TO JOIN ROTARY

      Copyright © 2015 Sylvia Whitlock.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4917-6059-8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4917-6058-1 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903307

      iUniverse rev. date: 03/04/2015

      Contents

      Women Also Serve—The Duarte Story

      In the Beginning

      The Aftermath of the Supreme Court Ruling

      Club Pursuits

      Rotary International Presidents

      Comments from Past Rotary International Presidents

      Diversity in Rotary

      Memories

      THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE LATE DR. RICHARD KEY, WHO HAD the brilliant and brave idea to invite women into Rotary. As a superintendent of schools in the Duarte Unified School District, he had daily interaction with capable women, and as a proponent of Rotary service, he made a yet-undefined connection between the two.

      This book is also dedicated to a past district governor, the late Dr. Tim Siu, who installed me as the first female Rotary club president in the world. He was the first person I recall using that phrase, and he never passed up the opportunity to mention that fact whenever he and I were in the same vicinity. He was a believer in women in Rotary and was proud of his role in making it real.

      Finally, I would be remiss if I did not salute the first woman who, in 1976, walked into a meeting of male Rotarians, Mary Lou Elliott. She escorted me to my first meeting some years later. Included in this dedication are all of the other women who have been firsts of one sort or another and have changed the face of Rotary.

      Women Also Serve—The Duarte Story

      THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE JOURNEY OF THE DUARTE ROTARY CLUB IN its quest to allow women to become members of Rotary. While the club’s focus was not a bid for women’s rights but for an increase in membership, the events played out as a women’s-rights issue and attracted the attention of civil-rights proponents. I wrote this book in response to the many requests I received to tell the story.

      In the Beginning

      THE ROTARY CLUB OF DUARTE, CALIFORNIA, WAS CHARTERED IN District 530 in 1952. But alas, just before its twenty-fifth birthday, in 1976, it did an unacceptable thing in the eyes of Rotary International: the Duarte club violated Rotary’s bylaws by inviting women to join in service above self, and its charter was unceremoniously revoked. Interestingly, when the first Rotary constitution, developed by the first Rotary Club of Chicago, was adopted in January 1906, it made no reference to the gender of potential Rotarians and specified only that they be persons of good character. No one knows why that statement morphed into men of good character, but one might surmise that the change came because more men than women peopled the workforce at the time. In 1976, the Duarte battles were taking place in the shadow of the civil-rights era, when battles for civil rights, including women’s rights, were rampant. Actually, the only issue the Duarte club was addressing was that membership was low, and there were lots of managerial-type women in Duarte who could make good Rotarians. But, said an attorney from Rotary International, they are forcing us to take everyone in, just like a motel.

      At the time, Duarte was a small bedroom community, home to the renowned City of Hope Hospital. The ranking business, by size, was the Duarte Unified School District, presided over by Richard Key, superintendent of schools. Dr. Key was also the president of the soon-to-be-infamous Rotary Club of Duarte. In 1976, Superintendent Key looked around the school district for professional types who could make good Rotarians, but they were all women. (This was also a time when most of the persons invited to join Rotary were professionals, managers, business owners, and executives. It is still that way in many countries.) Dr. Key thought he would test the notion of inviting women. So he called the district governor elect, Paul Bryan; told him what he was contemplating; and asked for his opinion. The governor elect wryly suggested that perhaps allowing women into the club was a good idea, but as discretion was the better part of valor, he recommended that Dr. Key send in only first-name initials when he registered the new members with Rotary International. Obviously, the Four-Way Test had not yet been deeply rooted into the ethics of enterprising Rotarians.

      Mary Lou Elliott, Donna Bogart, and Rosemary Freitag were invited to join the small club. Mary Lou was a junior-high-school principal, Donna was an elementary-school principal (later succeeded by Sylvia Whitlock), and Rosemary was a school psychologist. The women joined the group of eight or so male Rotarians, which included a real-estate agent, a dentist, an undertaker, a high-school principal, a City of Hope administrator, a Duarte City Council member, a sheriff, and the school superintendent. The undertaker resigned to register opposition to the invitation to the women. However, with the other male members, the women entered into the business of service above self and busied themselves with serving the community of which the school district was a large part. They were becoming Rotarians who entered into the spirit of this service organization. In 1977, they prepared to observe the twenty-fifth anniversary of the club and notified the head office of Rotary International of the celebration. RI, as it traditionally does, sent a representative to bear its greetings. All was well until the members of the club were introduced to the audience. The reaction of the representative went from surprise to disbelief to questioning to disbelief again and then to consternation as the women were introduced as Rotarians. In his experience and knowledge, there were no female Rotarians. The bylaws did not accommodate that. He returned to Evanston and reported on this disturbing series of events occurring in Duarte. Evanston immediately communicated with Duarte and told them the following:

      • The bylaws did not permit female Rotarians.

      • The

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