Marching Band Is Admitting Girls

After fifty-one years as an exclusively male organization, the Harvard University Marching Band has opened admission to women.

Following a long discussion with the band administration and other band members Monday night, band manager James Dill '71 said he "felt it was no longer fair to girls to exclude them."

"I think that women will not only improve the band's musicianship and social atmosphere, but will possibly add new dimension to the band's humor," Dill said.

"The band is an organization that has long thrived on sexist humor," said John Posner '71, student conductor. "What's happened here is that a lot of guys finally sat down to take a close look at the situation, chose to suppress the male chauvinist sentiments that bandies still fell, and did what was right."

In February the Concert Band decided to allow female membership; eight women participated in that organization last spring. Ten Radcliffe freshman signed up to audition for the marching band Monday and Radcliffe upperclassmen are expected to audition next week. "I hope at least ten or fifteen girls will march this year," Dill said.

Members of the band administration contacted members of three other Ivy

League bands which have recently become coed. "Bandies at Yale, Columbia, and Princeton said that their bands had not changed significantly after accepting girls," Posner said. "In fact one girl I talked to who was in an Ivy Band was shocked that I thought there might be problems with a mixed band."

Acknowledging the importance of women's liberation, Dill state, "this is also an expression of an awareness of a social movement toward sexual equality."

Posner, however, left some doubt as to whether the band was more concerned with sexual liberation as defined by Women's Lib or by Hugh Hefner. "I have always thought the problem has not been getting girls in to the band, but getting the band into girls," he said.