1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 |1957 | 1958 | 1959
1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966
1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970| 1971 | 1972 | 1973
1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980
1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987
1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | Epilogue, 1993
Events
In one of its most important sex discrimination rulings in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court in Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, declared that employers could not exclude women from jobs in which exposure to toxic substances could harm a developing fetus. The ruling was a decisive victory for a broad coalition of labor unions and women’s rights groups that challenged a “fetal protection” policy the country’s biggest manufacturer of automobile batteries had adopted to prevent its female employees’ being exposed to lead. All nine justices agreed the policy violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (03/20/91)
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rust v. Sullivan that the government could regulate medical speech, women’s speech and a woman’s right to complete health information and care. In the decision, the Court ruled that it was constitutional for the government to restrict Title X funded clinics from counseling women on abortion, upholding a “gag rule,” even if the continued pregnancy threatened a woman’s life or health. (05/23/91)
The U.S. Supreme Court, dealing another blow to abortion rights advocates, (Planned Parenthood Federation v. Agency for International Development, 90-1169), affirmed the federal government’s right to deny foreign aid to overseas health care organizations that promote abortion as a means of family planning. Planned Parenthood had sought to overturn the Reagan Administration’s Mexico City policy. (06/03/91)
Thurgood Marshall, the only Black ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, announced his retirement. (06/27/91)
President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, 43, a federal appeals court judge, to replace Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. (07/01/91)
NOW urged the NIH, as the leading body on medical research, to design a long-term research agenda that strives to improve the health and lives of women in this country. (06/12/91)
More than 2,000 activists from around the nation forged a dynamic plan of action for the 90’s at the National NOW Conference in New York. A march and rally also brought 7,500 people to the streets of New York during the conference to protest the “gag rule.” (07/05-07/91)
Allegations of sexual harassment against U.S. Supreme Court nomineee Clarence Thomas by law professor Anita Hill, which were quietly dismissed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, surfaced publicly in stories by Newsday and National Public Radio. (10/06/91) Though the full U.S. Senate was about to vote on the nomination, public pressure, primarily from women, including seven Congresswomen who stormed the Senate, forced reopening of the hearings. (10/08/91)
The re-opened Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Clarence Thomas were carried live on the major television networks. (10/11) Anita Hill gave a graphic description of Thomas’ sexual comments. Thomas was permitted to testify in his defense before, after and for six hours on the following day (Saturday). Hill spoke to 5 million people during the day on Friday; Thomas spoke to 30 million at night and on Saturday. Four people testified that Hill had told them several years before of Thomas’ actions. Senators Specter, Simpson, and Hatch savaged Hill, accusing her of fantasizing the events described in her testimony. The Committee finished its hearings with no decision. The full Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Thomas. (10/15/91)
Women’s police stations were part of a growing effort to end judicial immunity afforded men who attack women in Brazil. Brazil’s criminal justice system failed to treat violence against women as a crime, and it was still possible in Brazil for a man to kill his allegedly unfaithful wife and be absolved on the grounds of honor, according to Americas Watch, a New York-based human rights group. Rape was seldom investigated and rarely prosecuted. (11/17/91)
In the worst wave of scandals to embarass the Roman Catholic Church in North America, dozens of priests were accused of sexually abusing underage boys in the U.S. and Canada. By one estimate, Catholic institutions paid $400 million in settlements, with no end yet in sight. The accused included parish priests such as Father Gilbert Gauthe in Louisiana, who allegedly molested 35 boys, to the Rev. Bruce Ritter, the creator of Covenant House, a shelter for runaway boys, and Bishop Joseph Ferrario of Honolulu. (1991)
William Kennedy Smith was acquitted of rape charges. (12/11/91)
Lifestyles
Members of the action staff of National NOW constructed and erected a “Wall of Names” to mark the 18th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The wall was filled completely with names garnered from all over the country of those who signed petitions in support of keeping abortion legal. The panels contained 25,000 names, just 4% of the 650,000 signatures NOW and the Fund for the Feminist Majority had gathered in support of abortion rights. (01/22/91)
On January 12 Fran Kolb died of breast cancer in Marlboro, MA. Kolb was a longtime activist in NOW. She was a founder of the South Hills (suburban Pittsburgh, PA) chapter of NOW, an activist in New Jersey NOW, a national board member, and the director of the Eastern Region from 1971 to 1974. As a Bunting fellow at Radcliffe College’s Schlesinger Library in 1979, she was writing a history of the first 10 years of NOW. (01/12/91)
Young feminists from all over he country converged on Akron, OH, for NOW’s Young Feminist Conference that attracted 750 participants from 42 states. Conference participants attended workshops and issue hearings, discussed, debated, caucused and passed resolutions, signed up for campus action teams, internships and field organizing work and organized a zap action to demonstrate their opposition to the Persian Gulf War. (02/01-03/91)
In New York, feminists battled a new state law requiring liquor sellers to post alcohol-warning signs aimed at pregnant women. Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, charged that the legislation was a first step in setting up “a pregnancy-police state.” (03/91)
With the theme of “Diversity, Solidarity, Empowerment,” the National Lesbian Conference convened in Atlanta, GA. NOW members from Maine to California were among the 2,500 women attending the conference and were visible and effective participants, facilitating workshops, mediating disputes and staffing a NOW table in the Market Place. (04/24-28/91)
The Polish Government, which financed at least 70% of all medicines for its citizens, eliminated subsidies for birth control pills-more than tripling their price. But the Polish Parliament rejected legislation that would have banned abortions, dealing the Roman Catholic Church there its first political setback since 1989. (05/09/91)
New Hampshire offered to be a test site for the French abortion pill RU-486 in a resolution passed by the state legislature. Jennifer Jackman of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which backed the resolution, said it was part of a nationwide strategy to bring RU-486 into the country by demonstrating to its manufacturers that the climate was ripe for its introduction. (05/91)
Abortion rights advocates won a victory in the House when the chamber voted to reverse Bush Administration policy denying foreign aid funds to private family planning groups that advocate abortion. The so-called “Mexico City policy,” first promulgated in 1984 by then-President Ronald Reagan and supported by the House in votes twice before, was rejected on a 222-110 roll call, despite a White House warning that the legislation would be vetoed if the policy was reversed. (06/03/91)
NOW President Molly Yard walked out of the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C. with only a very stylish cane to assist her. Yard had suffered a stroke on May 15. (07/26/91)
Clinics that performed abortions in Wichita, KS, had been under seige by Operation Rescue (OR) since July 15. According to a poll by The Wichita Eagle and KAKE-TV, 78% of the city’s residents disagreed with Operation Rescue’s tactics, 75% approved of Judge Patrick Kelly’s order to arrest protestors blocking clinic entrances, and 69% favored a law that did not restrict abortion. The U.S. Justice Department joined forces with Operation Rescue to fight Judge Kelly’s injunction prohibiting OR from blocking access to the clinics. More than 2,000 arrests of OR protestors were made. (07/15-08/12/91)
The Senate voted to overturn the Administration’s “gag” rule that bars federally financed family planning clinics from giving women information about abortion. The prohibition against the rule was included in the $205 billion fiscal 1992 appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services that passed 72-25 and was sent to the White House. The Senate vote was five more than would be needed to override an expected veto by President Bush. The 272-156 vote in the House was short of the required two-thirds mark for an override. Bush vetoed the legislation and the House was 12 votes short of the two-thirds needed to override. (08/03/91)
Feminist Peg Yorkin donated $10 million-the largest gift in women’s rights history- to the Feminist Majority Foundation, half to endow the organization and half earmarked for the effort to bring RU-486 into this country. (10/02/91)
Molly Yard retired from the Presidency of NOW. Yard had announced in July 1990, when she was elected to a second term, that she would step down in December 1991, halfway through her term. She was succeeded by Executive Vice President Patricia Ireland. Despite the stroke suffered in May, Yard had steadily recovered and planned to continue to undertake feminist projects. (12/15/91)
Education
Dr. Frances Conley, 50, one of the country’s first female neurosurgeons, resigned her tenured professorship at Stanford Medical School after 25 years at the school because of sexual harassment. Only 15% of the medical school’s faculty were women as against about 25% nationwide. (06/03/91) Conley later (09/04/91) withdrew her resignation when the school promised changes and did not promote the physician whom she believed was largely responsible for the harassment. (1991)
Male students at St. Kizito’s co-ed boarding school in Kenya raped 71 teenage schoolgirls and 19 other girls died in a night of dormitory violence. The rampage began when the 271 girls at the school refused to join a strike planned by the boys. Women’s organizations released a statement that declared “St. Kizito boys found legitimacy from the way the Kenyan society subordinates women and girls.” (07/91)
Four undergraduate women, current and former members of Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, came forward with claims of pervasive and systematic sexual harassment and sex discrimination of women in the Corps. Texas A&M NOW contacted Commandant Thomas Darling on behalf of the women asking for immediate remedial action. (10/06/91)
Economic
NOW joined other civil rights groups in demanding fair hiring and employment practices at the Cracker Barrel Country Store, Inc. in Atlanta, GA. Cracker Barrel had dismissed over 15 employees solely on the basis of sexual orientation or perceived orientation. Cracker Barrel gave no consideration to the length of employment or the quality of job performance. (01/19/91)
In the Gulf War, women were 35,000 of the 540,000 U.S. troops. Though technically not assigned to combat by law, they ferried fuel, food and troops into combat areas. They maintained equipment, operated communication equipment and developed intelligence information. Two women were taken prisoner and 11 lost their lives. (07/02/90-04/06/91)
The U. S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to open combat positions for women aviators. The measure, offered by Senator Roth (R-DE) and Senator Kennedy (D-MA), was an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization bill. (07/31/91)
More than 100 Filipino women, Sri Lankans and other foreign women reported being raped or badly beaten by Kuwaiti soldiers, police, and Kuwaiti citizens in whose homes they were supposed to have been hired for domestic service. (07/29/91)
A U.S. Labor Department year-long pilot study of nine Fortune 500 corporations, confirmed that women and minorities faced barriers in their careers-the “glass ceiling”-at a far earlier stage than previously believed. The study found that they were excluded from networking, mentoring, and participation in policymaking committees. But President Bush continued to oppose civil rights legislation. (08/12/91)
Twenty-five employees, most of whom were Black and female, died in a fire at the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, NC. The fire started when an overhead hydraulic line ruptured spilling its flammable fluid on the floor where gas burners under the frying vats ignited the fumes. Panicked employees ran for the exits only to find some of them locked or blocked. The 11-year old plant had never been inspected. “The tragedy that occurred in Hamlet is a direct result of 10 years of the Reagan-Bush philosophy of letting industry police itself,” said Deborah E. Berkowitz, top safety expert for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. (09/91)
Jockey Julie Krone, 28, ranked No. 3 in the jockey standing in New York. Krone had won purses totaling $37 million, much more than any other woman in racing, and earned more than $300,000 a year. (10/02/91)
Culminating a seven-year effort by NOW Task Force Chair Dorothy Jonas and her daughter Bonnie Sloane, a landmark marital fiduciary duty bill with penalties was signed by Governor Pete Wilson, making California the first state to guarantee full protection of the law over the economic rights of spouses. Justice Donald King had opposed this bill even more vigorously than its 1989 predecessor; but Jonas and Sloane received support from over 50 statewide women’s groups, law school deans and legal scholars, and a retired Appellate Court Justice, Betty Barry-Deal, who successfully neutralized King’s opposition. (1991)
Religion
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, IL, issued an apology for his handling of a child sex abuse case involving a priest. He also appointed a three-member commission to review archdiocesan policies on handling priests accused of sexual misconduct with children. The Catholic Church reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, but often permitted such priests to be relocated in new parishes where they continued to have contact with children. (10/26/91)
Media
CBS aired Absolute Strangers. The two-hour movie, starring Henry Winkler, was based on the 1989 court case of Martin Klein, a Long Island accountant faced with the dilemma of aborting his second child in order to enhance the chances of saving the life of his comatose wife. Absolute Strangers took its title from the idea that anti-abortion activists with no family or legal ties to the Kleins went to court in an effort to strip Martin Klein of his rights, as Nancy Klein’s husband, to decide on her medical treatment. (04/10/91)
Time magazine tried to explain why the movie Thelma & Louise, struck a nerve with women who made it a sleeper hit of the year. (06/24/91)
Backlash, The Undeclared War on American Women by Susan Faludi, documenting the backlash against the feminist movement, was published by Crown and began climbing on the best-seller list where it remained through the rest of the year. (10/91)
In 1990, according to the Director’s Guild of America, women directed 23 of the 406 feature films produced under guild contracts. At roughly 5%, that was only a small rise from the 4.2% average they had maintained for the previous seven years. Of the 7,332 feature films made in Hollywood between 1939 and 1979, only 14 were directed by women, according to the Women’s Steering Committee of the DGA, which was formed in 1981 when those statistics surfaced. (10/14/91)
An episode of CBS’ “Designing Women” dealt with the sexual harassment charges Anita Hill made against Clarence Thomas and came down clearly on the side of Anita Hill. The show placed second only to ABC Football and, along with other CBS comedies, helped CBS win the ratings war that night with very positive audience reaction. (1991)
Gloria Steinem’s book, Revolution From Within, A Book of Self-Esteem, was published and made the best-seller list, where it stayed for the year. (1991)
Legal
A federal judge dismissed a NOW lawsuit alleging that anti-abortion protesters violated racketeering and antitrust laws by demonstrating at abortion clinics. The lawsuit sought an injunction against protests at abortion clinics around the country. NOW claimed that demonstrators engaged in extortion by threatening personnel, blocking clinic entrances, trespassing and damaging equipment. NOW appealed. (06/01/91)
The Fund for the Feminist Majority (FFM) launched a unique campaign to stop violence against women. Katherine Spillar, FFM National Coordinator, spearheaded a campaign for gender and racial balance in the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King beating. Spillar and FFM President Eleanor Smeal held a news conference calling for gender balance in the special commission investigating the King beating as well as integration of the police force. Spillar also testified before both the special commission and the regular police commission with hard-hitting, well-researched data on how women police dramatically reduce police violence and improve responsiveness to violence against women. (07/91)
A federal district judge ruled that Virginia’s state-supported military college, Virginia Military Institute, could continue admitting only men, saying that the benefits of a single-sex education justified the college’s 152-year-old policy of excluding women. (06/17/91)
District Court Judge George Woods granted a preliminary injunction against the Detroit, MI, public schools’ plan to open three male-only academies. Noting that Detroit’s plan was illegal because girls had been denied access to those schools in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S, Constitution, the Michigan State Constitution, Title IX, the Equal Education Opportunities Act, the Michigan Elliot Larsen Act, and the Michigan School Code, the judge ordered the parties involved to meet as soon as possible to work out an acceptable resolution of the issue. An interim agreement was reached which added 137 seats for girls, without eliminating any of the almost 600 seats for boys. That a crisis existed also for African-American girls was reflected in high rates of early pregnancy, drug abuse and victimization in crimes of violence-most often by the men of their community. ACLU joined NOW LDEF in a suit challenging the exclusion of girls from the proposed academies. (08/15/91)
A 110-page report by a task force studying gender bias in the Connecticut legal system, concluded that sex bias pervaded the system and included judges that whistled at women lawyers and made offensive remarks and sometimes sexual advances. Commissioned in 1987 by Chief Justice Ellen A. Peters of the Connecticut Supreme Court, the study, which took three years to complete, also showed that female lawyers were less likely than men to get lucrative case referrals or judicial appointments. Recommendations included making the language in judicial rule books and codes of conduct “gender neutral;” providing courses on sex bias for judges, lawyers and others in the judicial system, and condemning and punishing sexist conduct by judges, lawyers and court officials. (09/08/91)
Attorneys for the ACLU and Planned Parenthood Federation filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to rule directly in a Pennsylvania case on whether “a woman’s right to choose abortion is a fundamental right protected by the U. S. Constitution.” (11/07/91)
Political
Utah NOW called for a worldwide boycott of Utah until the legislature repealed its restrictive abortion law and urged that the International Olympic Committee be lobbied not to choose Salt Lake City as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. (02/02/91)
At the second in a series of hearings by the NOW Commission for Responsive Democracy, formation of a new political party won the overwhelming support of participants. By a vote of 2-1, the participants, many of whom had presented testimony during the day-long session, urged future political efforts be toward the formation of a new party and not just continuing to reform the present system. (01/19/91)
A NOW contingent was part of more than 110,000 patriotic Americans who marched for peace in the Middle East. NOW President Molly Yard was a speaker at the rally.(01/26/91)
The NOW Foundation’s Commission on Responsive Democracy held a hearing, co-sponsored by Texas NOW, at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law of Texas Southern University. Among the highlights of the town meeting-style event was testimony by Molly Ivins, feminist columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, who regaled the audience with tales of “good old boy” politics in Texas; Sissy Farenthold, long time political activist, who discussed the growth and danger to democracy of “the National Security State;” and Billie Carr, Democratic National Committee person and author of Organizing, Organizing, who urged those attending to work from the grass roots and take over the party structure. (03/01/91)
The NOW Commission on Responsive Democracy convened at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center with the help of Florida NOW and the Tampa Bay, FL, Chapters. There was a lively debate among commissioners on whether NOW should form a new party or work to reform the existing political system. (03/23/91)
The NOW Commission on Responsive Democracy held its Mid-West hearing at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute Conference Center in Minneapolis, assisted by Minnesota NOW. After a welcome by Minneapolis Mayor Don Fraser, the morning session focussed on how citizens could reclaim politics, with specific discussion on the barriers to citizen action, including the lack of access to the media. In the afternoon, there was testimony from activists on the need to build an agenda for political change, including a proposal for the formation of a Women’s Party by Polly Mann from Women Against Military Madness. (03/27/91)
For the first time in its 75 year history, Boys Town elected a girl for mayor. Sarah Williamson, 16, won a close four-way race in the village of about 550 students. Boys Town began admitting girls in 1980. (05/02/91)
The NOW Commission on Responsive Democracy convened at the State Public Utilities Building in San Francisco, co-sponsored by San Francisco NOW. Expert witnesses discussed campaign financing reform, term limitation proposals, gender and racial parity in elected office through redistricting and proportional representation. (05/04/91)
A letter hand-delivered to each Senator from Executive Vice President Patricia Ireland, expressed NOW’s opposition to the White House /Danforth Compromise Civil Rights Act of 1991 with its caps on damages and other weakening amendments. However, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to accept it. (06/18/91)
NOW chapters all over the country shadowed President Bush, Vice President Quayle, and Secretary Sullivan wherever they spoke. At the public speaking events, NOW activists protested by wearing white gags on their mouths and holding signs that read “Overturn the Gag Rule.” (06/25/91)
The NOW Commission on Responsive Democracy, meeting in Washington, D.C., urged that NOW help launch a new political party, free from what it called the corruption and hypocrisy of the Democratic and Republican parties. (09/16/91)
The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked 7 to 7 on the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, refusing to endorse President Bush’s choice. (09/27/91)
A memorial to the more than 10,000 women (most of them nurses) who served in Vietnam, eight of whom died, cleared its final bureaucratic hurdle in a seven-year campaign to honor the women. The model, by Santa Fe artist Glenna Goodacre, passed three federal commissions who review memorials. (11/11/91)
As a result of NOW’s Women Elect 1100 project in Louisiana, coordinated by NOW ‘s Kim Gandy, the number of women in the legislature tripled from three to nine, defeating anti-abortion incumbents. An abortion rights supporter was elected Lt. Governor, a woman was re-elected State Treasurer and another was elected to the Senate, the only woman serving there. Among the sweetest victories was: the defeat of Senator Alan Bates, the Senate sponsor of Louisiana’s harsh abortion law; the landslide defeat of an Eagle Forum standard bearer; and the trouncing of Rep. Carl Gunter who helped to defeat himself by his comment on incest- “That’s how we get thoroughbred race horses.” NOW activist Harriet Trudell served as Campaign Manager. (11/05/91)
Anthony, Stanton and Gage, the nation’s only feminist political and management consulting firm dedicated solely to advancing women’s rights, was established. Peg Yorkin was president, Jeanne Clark, operating officer, Jan Welch, executive assistant, and with Eleanor Smeal as consultant. (12/91)
The Backlash
Governor Norm Bangerter of Utah signed into law the nation’s most restrictive abortion legislation. The law stated that all abortions were illegal and made exceptions only for the mother’s life, grave damage to the mother’s medical health, grave fetal defects, and rape or incest during the first 20 weeks if reported to a law enforcement agency by the victim herself or someone acting on her behalf. Anyone who performed an illegal abortion would be subject to a $5,000 fine and/or five years in prison, though under the statute, the woman who had an abortion would not be charged with any crime. The bill was intentionally drafted to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion. (01/25/91)
As part of a real estate transaction with the Roman Catholic Church, a hospital in Chicago agreed not to perform elective abortions. Supporters of a woman’s right to choose abortion contended that the hospital, the Illinois Masonic Medical Center, bargained away a badly needed health service to obtain a parcel of land. The hospital was one of the few in Chicago that offered abortions through the 20th week of pregnancy. (01/07/91)
The Tidings and the National Catholic Reporter began running advertisements from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ $5 million public relations program orchestrated by the firm of Hill and Knowlton. The Bishops also enlisted a Latina lawyer, Helen Alvare, to be their spokesperson. (03-04/91)
Writing in the August/September issue of Operation Rescue National Rescue, Randall Terry asked “Why do Christians use birth control?” and urged his followers to stop. Describing the pill and IUD as abortifacients, he said,”At its core, birth control is anti-child. . . . why can’t we simply trust God for how many children we have?” (1991)
A Michigan judge, who said he would grant permission for abortions only to white girls raped and impregnated by Black men, created a furor across the state. Judge Francis Bourisseau told the Ludington (MI) Daily News he didn’t approve of abortion except in cases of rapes of whites by Blacks and for victims of incest. (04/26/91)
The Mississippi legislature voted to override the Governor’s veto of legislation requiring a 24-hour waiting period for women who wanted abortions. (1991)
Operation Rescue declared November 17-23 the week of National Days of Rescue IV with 50 or 60 citiestargeted for attack. Less than half that number actually experienced blockades and in each city, clinics were kept open and scheduled appointments were kept. (11/17-23/91)
NOW protested the Justice Department’s unprecedented action in filing a legal brief in court in Wichita, KS, supporting Operation Rescue’s illegal attacks at abortion clinics in that city and even at the trial judge’s home. The Justice Department argued that Judge Patrick Kelly had no power to see to it that the federal civil rights laws were obeyed in Kansas. (08/16/91)
society whose membership includes President Bush, obtained a court order temporarily blocking the all-male club from admitting women. Six women were to be initiated into the 159-year old association. (09/05/91)
Three researchers, described as radical feminists, held a news conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to denounce RU-486 as a dangerous and cumbersome medication that should not be permitted to replace surgical abortions in the U.S. or elsewhere. The three were Lynette Dumble, a medical scientist at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Renate Klein, lecturer on women’s studies at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, and Janice Raymond, a medical ethicist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “I think their perceptions are at odds with the data the French and others have collected about RU 486,” said Dr. Philip Darney of the University of California, San Francisco, an expert on RU 486. (09/12/91)
The Navy investigated charges by Lt. Paula Coughlin that drunken Navy officers fondled and harassed at least five women, including an Admiral’s aide (Coughlin) and one who was stripped of her clothes, at the Tailhook Association’s Convention in Las Vegas. (10/31/91)
