This is the complaint from a court case where Sports Illustrated journalist Melissa Ludtke alleged that Major League Baseball’s (MLB) policy of excluding female reporters from locker rooms put her at a professional disadvantage because of her gender.
Ludtke was an avid baseball fan and rising reporter at Sports Illustrated. She was assigned the 1977 baseball playoffs in New York and Philadelphia and the ensuing World Series. During the first two American League playoff games in New York, the Yankees refused to provide her the same access to the locker room as her male colleagues. Before the World Series started, Dodger players voted to let Ludtke into the clubhouse after games in Los Angeles. But Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn stepped in and reversed this decision. Ludtke missed capturing the ballplayers’ locker-room stories and interviews.
This document is featured in the primary source-based student workbook “Putting the Bill of Rights to the Test.”
