By The Catalyst Editorial Board
In our first edition of this semester, The Catalyst stressed the importance of our role as a historical record-keeper at Colorado College. To honor our commitment to this role, and to shine a light on historical events that involved the CC community, each block, we will be sharing pieces from The Catalyst archives and other forms of historical records on campus. In connecting our CC community with our past as an institution, we will not be holding back from uncovering truths about the past even when it may be uncomfortable. We want to show you, The Catalyst reader, the wins and the losses, the progression and the regression, the good and the bad, of Colorado College’s history.
Since 2015, each student that has passed through the Introduction to Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies course has pored through the archives for their final project to study the nature of race, gender and equity at the college. In total, more than 150 of these projects have been completed and each semester their posters have been hung in Worner for the student body to learn from. Before the anti-racism report was even conceived, Professor Ratchford, as well as REMS majors, minors, and other interested students, have been doing this antiracism work through these projects.
One such event found in The Catalyst archives was the locker room sit in by Colorado College women in 1973. Title IX was enacted in June 1972, and it states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” In January of 1973, women of Colorado College stood up to the inequality that had been outlawed the past summer — specifically the lack of a women’s locker room at El Pomar Sports Center — by performing a “shower-in” demonstration. The subsequent financing of the women’s locker room occurred the following month in Feb. 1973 and was completed in Nov. 1973. Colorado College did not introduce any women’s varsity sports teams until the fall of 1975, over three years after Title IX was enacted.
If you took part in the introduction to REMS course or have completed a project on the issue of equity in Colorado College’s history, please email t_juliano@coloradocollege.edu for submissions or questions.