After 25 years of teaching women-only classes at Boston College, Mary Daly, a renowned radical feminist philosopher with a history of sparking controversy, received an ultimatum from college administrators: Accept male students or stop teaching.

Mary Daly, pioneering feminist theorist and theologian and author of the groundbreaking book _Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism_, has, in effect, been "de-tenured" at Boston College. According to an editorial in the most recent issue of The Nation ( Laura Flanders, "Feminist De-tenured," July 26/August 6, 1999 issue, pp. 5-6), Daly has been teaching a course at BC, Introduction to Feminist Ethics, for the past 25 years to women only, in order to promote a safe space to discuss such issues as violence against women. A male student who wished to register for the course and who ignored Daly's offer to teach him outside the women's class (something she has done for the past dozen years) threatened, with the backing of the Center for Individual Rights, an organization that led attacks on affirmative action at the universities of Texas and Michigan, to sue BC under Title IX antidiscrimination provisions.

The intimidation worked and BC canceled Daly's courses for the upcoming academic year. BC claims that Daly resigned voluntarily, a claim she denies, and is no longer a faculty member. They have also denied her access to the university's grievance procedure. Daly is fighting Boston College's actions and has filed complaints of breach-of-contract and violation of tenure rights.

Daly is a scholar who put feminist theology and feminist ethics on the academic and political map and deserves the support of all who care about women's studies in the academy, about academic freedom, and about protecting the real purposes of Title IX.The Mary Daly Defense Fund can be reached at: P.O. Box 381176Cambridge, MA 02238-1176mdalyfund@aol.com Letters to Boston College in defense of Mary Daly can be sent to: Pres. William P. Leahy, SJBoston CollegeBotolph House Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3934

If you do write a letter, please forward a copy to the Defense Fund as well. Please pass this message on to others.Jane Rothstein,Ph.D. Candidate Department of History andSkirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies New York Universityjr231@is5.nyu.edu

http://www.womenbooks.com/mary_daly/author.html - Mary Daly Web Site with info about her life, works etcMary Daly

From Women Who Dare 1995 wall calendar, Library of Congress SIN BIG, by Mary Daly, The New Yorker, February 26, 1996 Mary Daly's curriculum vitae * * *

There are and will be those who think I have gone overboard. Let them rest assured that this assessmment is correct, probably beyond their wildest imagination, and that I will continue to do so.

Mary Daly--triple Ph.D., grande dame of feminist theologian scholarship, demolition derbyist of patriarchal “mindbindings,” perennial foe of “university bore-ocrats and other academented busybodies,” self-described “Positively Revolting Hag,” and influential author and activist--writes the above words in the opening pages of her most recent work, the autobiographical Outercourse (1992).

Daly, like many a feminist icon, started out a perfectly normal, good little girl, albeit unusually bright who wanted to study philosophy and religion. Amazing as it may seem twoscore years later, in the 1950s there were no American universities that allowed women to enter their graduate programs in theology. Dismayed, yet determined to follow her path, Daly repaired to Switzerland, living on a shoestring for several years and amassing various advanced degrees from the University of Freiburg when not sojourning about Europe on a scooter. Back in the States, Daly found herself amidst social currents that would soon give rise to the civil rights and antiwar movements of the sixties.

In her own sphere she was beginning to take aim--with all cool academic rigor--at the male supremacism of organized Christianity, first in The Church and the Second Sex (1968) and then in the groundbreaking, germinal Beyond God the Father (1973). ...... Daly was an exuberant participant in the feminist activism of the seventies, and both her books and her actions put her regularly in the disfavor of her employer, the theology department of the Jesuit-run Boston College. Daly’s first book got her fired, briefly, from her teaching position there, and her battles with the RC hierarchy over the years have made her a repeated cause celebre.

A scholar and seeker by nature, Daly did not set out to be a radical. But a telling sentence inOutercourse might explain the impetus that created a radical’s life--and indeed that drives all progress: “I was looking,” she writes, “for something that was not in the courses.”

From Women Who Dare 1995 wall calendar, Library of Congress * * *SIN BIG
By Mary Daly, The New Yorker, February 26, 1996

EVER since childhood, I have been honing my skills for living the life of a Radical Feminist Pirate and cultivating the Courage to Sin. The word "sin" is derived from the Indo-European root "es-," meaning "to be." When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a woman trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, "to be" in the fullest sense is "to sin." Women who are Pirates in a phallocratic society are involved in a complex operation. First, it is necessary to Plunder--that is, righteously rip off--gems of knowledge that the patriarchs have stolen from us. Second, we must Smuggle back to other women our Plundered treasures. In order to invent strategies that will be big and bold enough for the next millennium, it is crucial that women share our experiences: the chances we have taken and the choices that have kept us alive. They are my Pirate's battle cry and wake-up call for women who l want to hear. * * *
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Mary DalyCurriculum Vitae(abbreviated)EDUCATION
B.A. English. College of St. Rose, Albany, New York
M.A. English. Catholic University of America
Ph.D. Religion. St. Mary's College, Notre Dame Baccalaureate Sacred Theology. University of Fribourg, Switzerland Licentiate Sacred Theology. University of Fribourg. Switzerland Doctorate Sacred Theology. University of Fribourg, Switzerland Ph.D. Philosophy. University of Fribourg, Switzerland TEACHING Mary Daly is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College, where she teaches Feminist Ethics. Her courses are accredited for both graduate and undergraduate students, and are offered for cross-registration through nine theology schools and universities in the area.
BOOKS The Church and the Second Sex (1968; reissued with an "Autobiographical
Preface to the 1975 Edition" and a "Feminist Postchristian
Introduction," 1975; reissued with "New Archaic Afterwords," Boston: Beacon Press, 1985).
Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (1973: reissued with an "Original Reintroduction by the Author," Boston: Beacon Press, 1985).
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978; reissued with
"New Intergalactic Introduction by the Author," Boston: Beacon Press, 1990).
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy ( Boston: Beacon Press 1984; San Francisco HarperSanFrancisco, 1992).
Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language
Conjured in Cahoots with Jane Caputi. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).
Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage Containing Recollections from My
Logbook of a Radical Feminist Philosopher (Be-ing an Account of My
Time/Space Travels and Ideas--Then, Again, Now, and How) (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992). WORK IN PROGRESS
I am doing research and writing my next book, Quintessence, in which I further develop my Elemental Feminist Philosophy. This work is in some respects a successor to my philosophical autobiography, Outercourse, and in other ways it is a logical/ontological successor to my earlier works, Beyond God the Father, Gyn/Ecology, and Pure Lust.
LECTURES

Professor Daly has lectured at over 300 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada during the past 26 years. Since 1975, the scope of her lecturing has become more international. She has lectured in universities and public gatherings in Australia, England, Ireland, Germany, England, Norway, Scotland, and Switzerland. Of particular significance are the following:

1. Paper given and participation in the Second International Symposium on Belief, Vienna, Austria, sponsored by the Agnelli Foundation and Cardinal Roenig, January 8-11, 1975.

2. Lecture at Graz University, as a participant in the Styrian Academy, sponsored by the Department of Cultural Affairs of the government of Styria, Austria, October, 1982.

3. Lectures on Gyn/Ecology in Munich and Cologne, Germany, 1983.

4. Lectures on Pure Lust at the First International Bookfair, London, England, 1984.

5. Public lectures at Liberty Hall, Dublin and in Cork and Belfast, Ireland, 1984.

6. Lecture at the Second International Feminist Bookfair, Oslo, Norway, June, 1986.

7. Keynote address at weekend conference on Gyn/Ecology and Pure Lust, University of Bielefeld, Germany, June, 1986.

8. Public lecture and seminar, the University of Frankfurt, Germany, July, 1986. public lectures in Hamburg and in Stuttgart, Germany, July, 1986.

9. Keynote address at the Third International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, Dublin, Ireland, July, 1987.

10. Public lecture on Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, April, 1988.

11. Public lectures in London, Sheffield, and Bristol, England, and in Edinburgh, Scotland, April, 1988.

12. Week of seminars on Elemental Feminist Philosophy, Basel, Switzerland, July 11-17, 1988.

13. Public lecture on "Re-Calling the Elemental Powers of Women." Held in Bern, Switzerland, July 16, 1988.

14. Public lecture, "Voyage of a Radical Feminist Philosopher: On Be-ing a Pirate in the Nineties," Bologna, Italy, May, 1991.

15. Readings from Outercourse in London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Dublin, Belfast, and Cork, June 1-14, 1993.