Dear Star Tribune Editor:
It was great to see the editorial on March 17 recognizing the excellence of the University of Minnesota’s women’s teams. It might have been appropriate to delve into some of the historic reasons for these accomplishments.
First of all, in 1975, the legislature passed the strongest women’s sports equality law in the country (MS 121A.04). It was stronger than the federal Title IX in that Minnesota girls had the right to try out for and play on boys teams and there was no exemption for contact sports. A leading player pushing the University of Minnesota to move faster and go further was then Regent, now Justice, Alan Page. Just ask the women activists from that time how important his words and actions were in securing passage of this law.
In the case of hockey, Minnesota has another unique law requiring any arena renting ice to the public to show a fair and equitable division of ice time, particularly for prime times between men and women. We also require charitable groups supporting youth sports to divide their funds equitably.
Not only do Minnesota players fill almost the entire University of Minnesota’s women’s hockey team, but many teams playing us have a preponderance of women from our state. I remember one year when Wisconsin had more players from Minnesota than from Wisconsin!
Women seldom see anything handed to them, but this issue shows they know how to fight and win.
Sincerely,
Phyllis Kahn
DFL-Minneapolis