Course Correction by Ginny Gilder Page B

space into the boathouse’s parking lot. This year, however, the occupancy permit approval was delayed, leaving the women with nothing.
    That snag, combined with her sense that the university had pulled a bait and switch regarding a more permanent solution, ignited Chris’s disappointment. With the vision of a permanent locker room dancing in her head, Chris was no longer willing to settle for what hadmorphed into too little, too late, especially because she captained a team that relied on her and whose power to do great she not only championed, but believed in and relied on herself.
    Chris followed Anne’s lead. “We could go into her office and strip down. That would get her attention.”
    â€œImagine you standing buck naked in front of Joni Barnett!” Anne started laughing. “I dare you!”
    â€œYou’re on!” When this pair of Olympics-bound competitors egged each other on, there was no backing down. Chris rubbed her hands together gleefully and launched into planning our foray into Barnett’s office.
    I didn’t hesitate to follow Chris’s lead and join the protest. By March 3, I’d been rowing six months. I’d survived my first winter training. I’d accomplished previously unimaginable challenges with women I’d grown to like and respect. I was one of nineteen young women who gathered in the humid basement locker room at Payne Whitney before practice. Not everyone on the team showed up. Some had late afternoon classes, and at least one, Bakehead, citing apprehension over losing her campus job (she worked in the athletic department) and, worse, her financial aid, demurred. She could easily imagine a worst-case scenario in which the university would lash out at the participants, and she couldn’t afford it: “I wish I could go, but I can’t risk it,” she said.
    Our joking and joshing diminished as we printed “Title IX” on each other’s backs in Yale-blue marker. We grew quieter as we dressed in our team-issue sweatpants and sweatshirts. We paired up and proceeded to Barnett’s office in the Ray Tompkins House, home of the athletic administration, trailed by a duo of
Yale Daily News
staffers—a writer, David Zweig, who doubled as a stringer for the
New York Times
, and a photographer, Nina Haight. Barnett’s secretary was surprised that Chris Ernst was accompanied by eighteen others to her appointment with the director, but she ushered us in.
    We stood silently, somberly, facing Barnett, who retreated behind her broad desk. Instead of sitting down, however, she remained standing, one hand on her desk as if to steady herself. Chris turned sideways and nodded slightly. Perfectly synchronized, we turned our backs to the administrator, pulled off our sweatshirts, dropped our pants, andstood stark naked, absolutely silent. David Zweig turned his back and kept scribbling notes.
    Barnett said, “Do you want this man in here?”
    Chris waved her hand as if to shush a child. “Yes, it’s fine. Just listen please.” She unfolded a sheet of paper. “These are the bodies Yale is exploiting,” she began, reading from her prepared statement. I stood there, feeling a wintry draft through the aging windows of the Ray Tompkins House. “We are using you and your office because you are the symbol of women’s athletics at Yale; we’re using this method to express our urgency …”
    I felt the magnificence of the moment: standing up for myself, for all of us, surrounded and strengthened by my compatriots. Forget those rower boys who thought our beloved sport belonged only to them, who thought their disgusting nicknames for us could intimidate and dissuade us. The power of “crack,” “sweat hog,” and “inhuman scum” drained away, along with my sense of loneliness. I had found my place, where I didn’t have to diminish my dreams or sacrifice myself to gain