
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991                   TAG: 9104160246
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW HAVEN, CONN.                                LENGTH: Medium

YALE SOCIETY'S ALUMNI CLOSE DOORS AFTER WOMEN TAPPED

Skull and Bones, the all-male secret society at Yale University whose members include President Bush, was ordered closed for a year by its alumni directors after rebellious students invited women to join.

The alumni directors have been debating whether to end the private club's 159-year-old tradition as a bastion of male-only bonding, but were having difficulty reaching a decision.

The 15 seniors in the current class of Bonesmen, frustrated by the lack of action, notified the board of directors at an emergency meeting Friday night that they had invited seven women and eight men to join.

In response, the board over the weekend replaced the locks on the "Tomb," the windowless, mausoleum-like building where the society meets.

Sidney Lovett, the society's secretary and assistant treasurer, said Monday that the alumni directors had no choice but to suspend operations for a year.

Skull and Bones is not an institution that will allow its traditions to be changed "arbitrarily or in an unauthorized way," Lovett said.

None of the juniors tapped by the class of 1991 will be recognized as members, he said.

The current Bonesmen said they were seeking the help of some of the society's influential alumni in turning the board around. Even if they are unsuccessful, they said they would carry out all the rituals of tapping a new club and introducing them into the world of Skull and Bones.

"What they've done is a throwback to the 19th century," said a spokesman for the group. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the society's strict rules about secrecy.

Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., a Bonesman from the class of 1963 who serves on the Yale Corporation, the university's board of trustees, issued a statement saying that the decision by this year's club "should be respected and accepted."

Yale began admitting women in 1969. Only one other senior society, Wolf's Head, remains all-male. At Princeton University, the last holdout among five all-male clubs admitted women in February after more than a decade of legal battles to keep them out.

While refusing to admit women, Skull and Bones has an otherwise diverse membership. Black, Hispanic and gay students are members of the current club.

by CNB