Across campuses, colleges have a duty: to protect all students. That includes the right to privacy, safety, and dignity—especially for young women
Across campuses, colleges have a duty: to protect all students.
That includes the right to privacy, safety, and dignity—especially for young women participating in athletics.
At the University of Pennsylvania, female athletes were required to share a locker room with a male teammate for over a year. Several times a week, they had to undress, change into swimsuits, and navigate the discomfort of exposed, vulnerable moments in shared space. Swimwear changes aren’t brief—they often take time, and require a level of privacy that respects the needs of the body and the spirit.
Older experienced adults can’t shrink into naiveté and feigned lack of knowledge and information now. They knew. And still……
For any young woman—especially Survivors of past harm—this isn’t a small issue. It’s not about preference. It’s about protection.
It is profoundly troubling that when these women voiced their discomfort, they were met not with support, but silence. Their right to speak about their bodies and boundaries was disregarded. Their safety concerns were dismissed.
But here is the truth: women have the right to safety in the spaces where they undress. They have the right to say, “This makes me uncomfortable,” and be heard. They have the right to expect that institutions will protect them—not pressure them into silence.
This is not about exclusion. It is about protection. It is about the recognition that some spaces must remain boundaried so that safety, healing, trust, and confidence can thrive.
To ask women to sacrifice their own safety and comfort for the sake of being “accommodating” is a deeply unfair burden. Some could even argue criminal. Colleges MUST do better. Starting yesterday.
Every policy, every decision, every space must be designed with care—and that includes respecting the physical and emotional safety of the women who train, compete, and give their all for their teams.
These young women deserved better. And the brave ones who spoke up deserve our respect—not our ridicule.
Women’s rights include the right to boundaries.
And any institution entrusted with young lives must protect that right—consistently, compassionately, and without compromise.
The Ivy League institution had to be compelled to do the right thing by female student athletes. Just basic human compassion, respect, and protection of their rights and dignity. That’s it.
Meanwhile, as these young ladies tell their stories, there are still men old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers antagonizing them and calling them “hateful” because they dare to speak against disrobing in the presence of a male several times per week, for months on end, season after season. The plot is lost.
