Liberation of the Divinity Library Men’s Room
Yale Daily News article: "Girls Occupy John"
In 1970, women still had to climb three flights of stairs to get from their study carrels in the basement of the library to the nearest women’s restroom. In April of that year, approximately ten women decided to take a purposeful “symbolic action” -- they tacked the letters “WO” onto the “MEN” sign affixed to the door of the men’s restroom in the library basement. The women walked in and refused to leave until an agreement about restroom facilities for women was made. Late that afternoon, Colin Williams, Dean of the Divinity School, came downstairs bearing a white flag. The women gave their demands: that the restroom be designated for women for an equal number of years as it had been for men, after which it would revert to common use. The dean allowed instead that the restroom be immediately designated for common use, with the understanding that any occupant would lock the door while inside.
Women participating in the “action” included Carol P. Christ, Francine Cardman, Marilyn Collins, Mary Rose D’Angelo, Margaret Farley, Kit Havice, Margaret O’Gara, Judith Plaskow, and Ann Vater.
Another article describing the liberation of the men's room
“This particular incident has to do with consciousness raising, an important part of one’s experience as a student. Women students were sufficient in number by then at Y.D.S. that we all together noticed that we all were having similar problems. At the Divinity School, there were no restroom facilities accessible to women in the Library without going a fair distance. If you were working in your carrel in the Library, you had a long way to go before you found a restroom. There was in the basement of the Library at the time, where many of the carrels were, a men’s restroom. So a group of us decided to liberate it, to either make it a restroom for women, or, at least one that could be used by both women and men. Everybody was used to the kinds of demonstrations that included sit-ins, so we had a sit-in the bathroom in the basement of the Library […] The Dean was Colin Williams, and he came with a white flag of sorts, surrendering, so we could have a bathroom […] It raised a lot of consciousness around the Divinity School.”
Margaret Farley, Yale Ph.D. student in 1970