Commissioner Kuhn Orders Equal Clubhouse Access for Women Reporters

On March 9, 1979, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ordered all 26 major league clubs to grant equal clubhouse access to reporters regardless of sex. The directive followed a federal court ruling from the previous September that found Major League Baseball had violated the constitutional rights of Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke.

Ludtke had been denied access to the Yankees clubhouse during the 1977 World Series between New York and the Los Angeles Dodgers. She and Time Inc., Sports Illustrated's parent company, filed suit against Kuhn and the Yankees. On September 25, 1978, Judge Constance Baker Motley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that MLB had "substantially and directly" interfered with Ludtke's Fourteenth Amendment right to pursue her profession.

Kuhn's response came five months later and fell short of a firm mandate. His order allowed each club to set its own policy for implementing equal access, which left room for inconsistency. Some teams complied immediately. Others dragged their feet. Ludtke later pointed out that letting individual clubs decide their own policies created uneven conditions for women covering different teams on the road.

The ruling and the commissioner's directive did not end resistance overnight. Female reporters continued to face hostility in clubhouses throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. But the legal precedent was clear. Barring reporters on the basis of sex violated the law. The March 9 order set the standard, even if enforcement took years to catch up to the principle.