The Spectator ● October 31, 2013
Page 3
Features
Abby Scheck, class of ‘72, comments on the experience of being a part of the first female class at Stuyvesant High School.
By ARINA BYKADOROVA Gentlemen, imagine life without girls. Ballroom dancing? Forget it. Big Sib Little Sib dance? Boring. Prom? Man, have to take out some of those silly Hunter girls. Sound like a nightmare? Forty years ago, this was Stuyvesant. As the 1970 Indicator puts it, Stuy was “one of the last bastions of all-male education” until the school “finally opened to coeducation and its accompanying benefits.” It all began with a girl who didn’t want to go to Bronx Science. In 1968, Alice Haines, nee DeRivera, was a freshman at John Jay High School looking for an academic challenge. Despite scoring above the cutoff for Stuyvesant on the SHSAT, she was denied admission because of the school’s all-male policy. Not wanting to commute two hours to Bronx Science, which had also accepted her (and had been coed since 1946), Haines sued. The Board of Education faced charges of denying
Haines equal protection of the law and struggled for a few months before giving in. In September of 1969, Stuyvesant was obliged to open its doors to female students. Twelve brave souls enrolled that year, nine of them incoming sophomores. Haines ultimately did not attend Stuyvesant because her family had moved upstate to avoid publicity. Last June, as the keynote speaker for the graduation for the class of 2013, she received an honorary Stuyvesant diploma. Time has scattered the pioneers of 1969. Few were available to talk, but one of the nine sophomores, Abby Scheck (’72), met with me for an interview on the wind-blown boardwalk of Brighton Beach. Her face was reminiscent of the girl whose senior photo I found in the yearbook, and she smiled while looking back on her days at Stuy. “It was, without a doubt, the best educational experience of my life. If there was some way in the universe that I could do it again, I would,” she said. Though it was done in a time of many political statements, breaking Stuyvesant’s policy was not a political stand for the frontierswomen. This was no crusade for women’s rights. “None of us were hotheaded politically,” Scheck said, and she chose Stuyvesant, or “Stuyvesant chose me, initially for geographic reasons.” Her parents didn’t want her going to her local high school, but they also didn’t want her traveling all the way to Bronx Science from mid-Brooklyn. “It’s more of a big deal now than it was then,” she said. To female students, the priority was their schoolwork, not championing convention. “We were 13, 14 years old, and
we didn’t know any better—we wanted to study,” Scheck said. Big deal or not, being girls in a boys’ school did have its obstacles. “The principal, Dr. Fliedner, did not greet us,” Eve Berman (’72), one of Scheck’s classmates, told “Stuyvesant 100 Years.” “It was clear that the faculty, and even many of the
Though it was done in a time of many political statements, breaking Stuyvesant’s policy was not a political stand for the frontierswomen. students, were ambivalent at best to see the school opened up.” In fact, Principal Leonard Fliedner, in his message to the class of 1970, called the graduation of the last all-male class a special occasion. By their graduation in 1972, however, the ladies were congratulated warmly in the principal’s message and appeared in many of the yearbook photos and articles. The introduction of female students also created all kinds of touchy subjects. “The principal had very definite ideas of how we should dress and behave,” Scheck said, laughing. “I believe the word ‘ladylike’ was mentioned more than once.”
In one instance, one of the girls wore pants that looked too masculine and was stopped at the entrance of the school. Scheck herself had once been sent to the dean for wearing a pair of culottes. When I compared it to our own dress code woes, Scheck humorously remarked, “We’ve come a long way.” The year that Stuyvesant became co-ed was a turbulent one, due to the war in Vietnam. The boys in the school were about to face the draft, and many students joined the fight against it. “For me, it was only in the spring of that year, when the protests over the Vietnam War united the school, that I felt a real part of the mainstream Stuy High culture,” Berman told “Stuyvesant 100 Years.” The largest demonstration was in May of 1970, when the students staged a protest of 1,200 people outside the school. Throughout those years, the war was an inexhaustible source of debate and discussion. Beyond the war’s influence, the girls also chose other ways to assimilate into Stuyvesant culture. Most of them got involved in extracurriculars like the Student-Faculty show (SING!’s predecessor), ARISTA, the student government, the handball team, The Spectator, and a variety of other clubs and publications. I was curious to see how Scheck had involved herself in the school and with the antiwar movement, but all she could show me was the list of extracurriculars written next to her name in the yearbook that I had already seen. At first I was disappointed; if she didn’t remember, Stuy culture couldn’t have been important to her. When she began telling me about the recent reunion of the
class of 1972, I realized I was wrong. “It was just amazing to see the interactions of people all these years later,” she said. Scheck marveled that on the ’72 Facebook group, several alumni spent an hour commenting on a photo of a chair they made in woodworking class so many years ago, which one of their mothers had saved. She said that one of the reunion activities was a visit to the school. “The thing that hits us the most is when we see things like this,” she said, showing me a picture of her and a few classmates visiting the memorial classroom, sitting in their old seats and raising their hands. Five of the original nine sophomores made it to the reunion. Though some have become famous surgeons and some college professors living all over the country, Scheck said, “When you look at them, you don’t see them as they are now, but as they were then, in school.” It’s crazy to think that many years from now, we will all meet again at our own reunions. I asked Scheck if she’d like to pass on any message to us students, who are going through the similarly rigorous high school experience 40 years later. She responded with an anecdote about a man in her apartment building who graduated from Stuyvesant a few years before she did. Whenever he sees her, he sings the school song or jokes about their high school years, and Scheck feels that such school spirit is a great thing to have. “You have to keep that sense of wonderment and excitement and school spirit,” she said. “In all seriousness, the bonds that you make now will remain with you all your life if you choose to do so.”
Roving Reporter: The Holiday Season By Rabia Aktar and Stanley Chan
Tis the season...for last minute campaigning as New York City becomes a battleground for mayoral hopefuls Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota in the elections taking place on Tuesday, November 5. Amidst the patriotic signs and political rallies topic resurfaced that both candidates are keen on endorsing: ethnic holidays. De Blasio and Lhota have repeatedly proposed an idea to add two Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to the school calendar, claiming that doing so would adjust the school system to account for New York City’s wide range of diversity. This idea has received a range of controversial opinions from numerous publications, including praise from firm advocators, and backlash from unhappy citizens. As a school of extremely diverse demographics, Stuyvesant becomes a relevant community in this religious debate, and offers key insight to the pragmatism of this future proposal. Victor Greez, History Teacher:
Faizah Yeasmin, Senior and MSA President:
“In order to fully determine whether or not this proposal will be effective, “we definitely have to look at the changing demographics of the city...We need to take little steps, and one thing we could do is give [students and staff observing religious holidays] no penalty for an absence”.
“I’ve always been absent from school on Eid, but what upsets me more than having to catch up on school work is the fact that many of my peers have no idea what Eid is. So getting a day off for Eid will not only give me more time to freely spend with my family and friends, but also[will interest] others into learning what the holiday really is. So I’m really excited about that!’ Iris Zhao, Junior:
Hassan Mohammed, Senior and MSA Vice-President: “I think that it’s a nice thing, especially [since] the Muslim population is increasingly growing... Furthermore, I think that from the [start] we shouldn’t have holidays for religious holidays and just have excused absences, but since that is not the case and we don’t live in a vacuum, Eid should be offered as a holiday.” Noah Alexander Tom-Wong, Junior: “Yay, days off—because days off are always good! I think equal representation is always a great thing, and it’s good that the school calendar may be extended next year. Honestly, I would like to see a day off for Chinese New Year, but it’s a pretty long holiday. For example, when I lived in Hong Kong, we got 2 extra weeks off. Here in New York, that would be wonderful, but obviously we can’t do that here. The logistics of it would simply be difficult.”
Michelle Lin / The Spectator
Courtesy of The Indicator
Getting the Girls: The Story of Stuyvesant’s First Women
“I personally wouldn’t mind the extra day to catch up on sleep and homework, but asides from my personal interests, I think that this addition would pose a concern to a bigger debate. What would be the limit that constitutes which holidays would be added to the school calendar? What is the difference between Eid being added, and Chinese New Year not being added? It seems really selective and exclusive, and I don’t know if this proposal is the right solution.” Aidan Fitzgerald, Sophomore: “I definitely think that all different cultures need to have fair representation within our education system. Of course you can’t have too many holidays for one cultural group, but you can’t have too few either.”
Corbin Allardice, Senior:
Michael Jin, Junior:
“It’s very ethnocentric to focus only on religious holidays of certain groups, especially since at this point, there is a high mass of Muslims in the city, and thus it has a certain impact on the population. [On the subject of religious minority groups asking for representation] I think it might, and I think they should have the opportunity to take time off. That said, it should only be required on a city level mass of people because that will have an effect on how the city runs. There’s a vast spectrum of different beliefs, and the number of beliefs—people would basically have to take off for the entire year. It’s just not feasible to take time off. “
“If we already have ethnic holidays in our holidays, why not honor all of them? What makes the Jewish better than the Muslims, or the Christians better than Muslims? If there’s a great population of a certain religious group, why not let them have their days off?”