The winners of the fifth annual Ann Bancroft Awards were honored May 15 at a sold-out banquet at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis. The awards exemplify the spirit of Bancroft, an explorer and educator from Scandia, Minn., who, along with Liv Arnesen of Norway, recently became the first woman to cross Anarctica.
The following individuals and organization were recognized for their accomplishments and support of girls and women.
€ Lauren Jarvis is a 17-year-old from Minneapolis whose social actions have been aimed at fighting prejudice and bigotry and promoting human rights. Jarvis helped create the Leland Johnson Common Vision Program, which brings together Jewish and African American high school students so they can learn about each other's culture and experience with prejudice.
€ Gloria Griffin, often referred to as Minnesota's pre-eminent feminist, was the DFL-endorsed candidate for U.S. Congress in 1976. Griffin is the founder of the Minnesota Women's Consortium and helped buy and develop the Minnesota Women's Building in St. Paul. She lives in Tonka Bay.
€ Nancy Gruver of Duluth is the founder and publisher of New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and their Dreams, which is read by over 100,000 girls worldwide. The groundbreaking publication is edited by girls who select material submitted by girls all over the world.
€ The Minnesota Women's Press (MWP), one of the longest-lived women's publications in the country, promotes women's words, ideas and values with a bi-weekly newspaper, an annual women's resource directory and the BookWomen Center for Feminist Reading, which includes a lending library, book groups and bimonthly bookletter. Co-founders and co-publishers Glenda Martin and Mollie Hoben accepted the award.
Moving on up
Princeton University in New Jersey recently selected a woman to serve as president for the first time in its 255-year history.
Shirley Tilghman is currently a senior molecular biology professor at Princeton and becomes only the third woman to head an Ivy League institution. Other women presidents include Judith Rodlin at the University of Pennsylvania and Ruth Simmons, who will take office at Brown University on July 1.
Tilghman, who heads Princeton's Institute for Integrative Genomics, was a pioneer in the mapping of the human genome and mammalian gene cloning. Throughout her career, Tilghman has been an outspoken advocate for women's rights. She has protested the practice of awarding tenure at universities, claiming that the trial period leading up to the tenure decision usually coincides with childbearing years, which pressures many women to choose between family and career. Tilghman also argued for the U.S. government to deny funding to scientific meetings that did not include women on their panels of presenters.
Fit for a queen
"Personally, I think an empress is fine," said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who, according to officials, plans to review a law that forbids women from ascending the millennia-old-Chrysanthemum throne.
The law that prevents women from reigning was enacted in 1947 after World War II.
Koizumi is the first Prime Minister to openly endorse the idea of a woman on the throne. Japan's imperial family, with its origins steeped in legend, is so entrenched in tradition that even the suggestion of change is nearly taboo. Koizumi is creating a panel within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to look at changing the imperial succession law.
The country's first empress, Suiko, began her reign in 665. Seven other women succeeded her over the next 150 years. The last reigning empress, Go-Sakuramachi, died in 1771.
Sontag criticizes Israel
Author and human-rights activist Susan Sontag, recently accepted Israel's top literary award but used her speech to criticize the nation's treatment of the Palestinians. She said in her speech that writers should avoid being "opinion machines" and then went on to say that she opposes collective punishment for Palestinian attacks and favors dismantlement of the Jewish settlement in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Some activists had prompted Sontag, a American Jew, not to accept the Jerusalem prize, saying it would be seen as indirect support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
U.S. seeks lawsuit dismissal
The U.S. State Department is seeking dismissal of a class-action lawsuit brought against Japan by "comfort women" who claim they were forced to serve as sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II.
The lawsuit is brought under a 212-year-old U.S. law that gives foreigners the right to file federal lawsuits for crimes committed in violation of international law. But, the government's position is that the U.S. Federal Court doesn't have jurisdiction and thus may not hear the case, said Richard Boucher, the state department spokesman.
Local profs receive fellowships
Two Twin Cities professors, Duchess Harris at Macalester College and Sally Kenney at the University of Minnesota, received fellowships designed to broaden their respective areas of expertise.
Harris, a professor of African American studies and political science at Macalester College, recently received a 2001 Career Enhancement Fellowship from the New Jersey-based Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
Harris is one of eight professors nationwide to receive the fellowship, which assists junior faculty in pursuing scholarly research and writing for one year. She will use the award to complete a book that explores how black women have tried in the past 40 years to become involved in electoral politics and grassroots organizing.
In addition to serving as the director of Macalester's African American Studies Program, Harris was appointed to the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, has conducted research for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, was a constituent advocate for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone and currently sits on the board of directors of the Minnesota Women's Foundation.
Kenney, professor at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and director of the Center on Women and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, is one of 11 Atlantic Fellows in Public Policy for 2001. The fellowship is awarded by the British Embassy and provides opportunities for mid-career professionals to study and gain practical experience in a wide variety of public policy areas in the United Kingdom.
Kenney will examine how the gender of judges becomes a political issue. In Britain, how judges are chosen and whether more women should serve has recently become a matter of public debate. Kenney's prior research as professor of public affairs and law has examined both the exclusion of women from hazardous work and pregnancy discrimination in the United States, United Kingdom and European Union.
MWP Update
Convicted rapist sent to workhouse, not jail
After pleading guilty to the October rape of a 15-year-old girl on school grounds in St. Paul [MWP Nov. 8-21, 2000], Central High School student Durelle White, 18, was recently sentenced to serve one year in the Ramsey County workhouse and 15 years' probation. White must also register as a predatory sex offender and complete sex-offender treatment.
White could have received four years in prison, as recommended by Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines for third-degree criminal sexual conduct, but Ramsey County District Judge Paulette Flynn cited White's otherwise clean record, his stable home environment and community support for imposing the stayed prison sentence. However, White could go to jail if he violates his probation.
Two other male students accused of participating in the rape will be sentenced later this month.
Hot Flash
Session ends with lots in limbo
Women's reproductive health hangs in the balance as the Minnesota Legislature, which failed to adjourn by its official deadline of May 21, prepares for a special session.
Left stranded in a conference committee is a $6.8 billion Health and Human Services bill, which funds nursing homes, public health labs, hospitals, children's health insurance and other programs.
The House version of this bill contains language about a "Woman's Right to Know," which would require women to wait 24 hours before receiving an abortion. It also cuts family planning funding by 70 percent, imposes a gag rule that makes any organization that refers, counsels or provides abortions ineligible for state family planning grants, reduces pregnancy prevention money and mandates that pregnancy prevention programs be based on an "abstinence until marriage" philosophy.
The Senate version of the bill does not contain any of these features.
Gov. Ventura vetoed the legislation on May 15 and has called for a special legislative session. That means there is still time to call your legislators and tell them to pass the Senate version of the bill, which does not threaten women's reproductive health. For updated information or to contact one of the members of the conference committee for the Health and Human Services bill, visit the web site of the Minnesota chapter of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) at www.mnnaral.org.
Gov. Ventura vetoed the legislation, as he did when similar language was introduced during the 2000 legislative session.
