Melissa Ludtke

Melissa Ludtke (born May 27, 1951) is an American journalist.[1] In 1978, as a young sports journalist, Ludtke won a lawsuit for the right to be allowed in Major League Baseball locker rooms.[2][3]

Melissa Ludtke
Melissa Ludtke in March 2013
Ludtke in March 2013
Born (1951-05-27) May 27, 1951
Iowa City, Iowa U.S.
Other namesMelissa Ludtke Lincoln
OccupationJournalist
Years active1974–present
SpouseEric Lincoln (divorced)
Children1

Early life

Ludtke was born in Iowa City, Iowa, but grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was the oldest of five children, her father worked at the University of Massachusetts where he taught finance, and her mother earned a Ph.D. in anthropology. Ludtke attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA and graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

Career

Ludtke always had a passion for sports, and upon graduation, she began working for ABC Sports and Sports Illustrated.[10]

Ludtke was a writer and editor for the Nieman Reports magazine of Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism from 1998 to 2011. She then served as the Executive Director of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University from 2011 to 2013. Before her editor job at the Nieman Foundation, she had been a correspondent with Time magazine and a reporter/researcher with Sports Illustrated and with CBS News.

In July 2013, Ludtke was featured in Let Them Wear Towels, a short documentary on females working in male locker rooms by Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern.

Court case against Major League Baseball
Page from Complaint

Ludtke was a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit, Melissa Ludtke and Time, Inc., Plaintiffs, v. Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of Baseball et al. (1978) that is credited with giving equal access to Major League Baseball locker rooms to women sports reporters.[11][12] In 1977, Ludtke sued the baseball commission on the basis that her 14th amendment rights were violated when she was denied access to the New York Yankees clubhouse while reporting on the 1977 World Series.[13][14] She won the lawsuit.[15][16] The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York stated her fourteenth amendment right was violated since the New York Yankees clubhouse was controlled by New York City. That court also stated that her fundamental right to pursue a career was violated based on her sex.[17]

When asked how the case, Ludtke vs. Kuhn, has impacted journalism she said "It increased enormously the number of young women who came into sports media — as reporters, as employees of sports teams and league offices, in agencies representing athletes and in other aspects of sports work that earlier generations of women had not been involved with, such as working as team trainers or as umpires."[18]

Honors

In 2010, Ludtke received the Yankee Quill Award, the highest individual honor bestowed on a journalist in New England. At Sports Illustrated, she was given a Front Page Award, and at Time was the recipient of several journalism awards. In 2012, Ludtke was nominated by the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute as one of the "100 Outstanding Journalists in the United States in the Last 100 Years".[11]

Personal life

In 1978, Ludtke married sportswriter Eric Lincoln. In 1982, Ludtke and Lincoln divorced.[4][8]

Ludtke has a daughter named Maya, whom she adopted as a baby girl from China.[4][8][19]

Works and publications
  • Lincoln, Melissa Ludtke (April 15, 1979). "Locker Rooms: Equality With Integrity". The New York Times.
  • Ludtke, Melissa (1997). On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52-021830-7. OCLC 39640033.

References
  1. Volz, Yong (October 27, 2013). "Melissa Ludtke" (Includes video and audio). Herstory: Oral History of Women Journalists.
  2. Strachan, Maxwell (September 25, 2015). "37 Years Ago, A Female Journalist Won The Right To Do Her Job". The Huffington Post.
  3. Zinser, Lynn (January 21, 2010). "The First Woman Through the Locker Room Door, 35 Years Ago". The New York Times.
  4. Engelhart, Anne (June 2000). "Ludtke, Melissa. Papers of Melissa Ludtke, 1977-1997: A Finding Aid". Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. No. Call No.: 99-M58--99-M155. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
  5. Ritchie, Anne (1993). "Interviews with Melissa Ludtke". Women in Journalism oral history program. No. Interviews Conducted: February 21, 1993, March 2, 1993, January 15, 1994. May 6, 1994. Washington Press Club Foundation.
  6. Ritchie, Anne (February 21, 1993). "Interviews with Melissa Ludtke: Interview #1 (pp. 1-22)". Women in Journalism oral history program. Washington Press Club Foundation.
  7. Ritchie, Anne (March 2, 1993). "Interviews with Melissa Ludtke: Interview #2 (pp. 23-42)". Women in Journalism oral history program. Washington Press Club Foundation.
  8. Ritchie, Anne (January 15, 1994). "Interviews with Melissa Ludtke: Interview #3 (pp. 43-70)". Women in Journalism oral history program. Washington Press Club Foundation.
  9. Ritchie, Anne (May 6, 1994). "Interviews with Melissa Ludtke: Interview #4 (pp. 71-88)". Women in Journalism oral history program. Washington Press Club Foundation.
  10. Woulfe, Molly (September 18, 1988). "Suit Won Entry To Locker Room". Chicago Tribune.
  11. "Melissa Ludtke and Time, Inc., Plaintiffs, v. Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of Baseball United States District Court, Southern District of New York. 461 F. Supp. 86. September 25, 1978". University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law.
  12. "Complaint: Melissa Ludtke and Time, Incorporated" (PDF). Melissa Ludtke and Time, Incorporated v. Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of Baseball, et al. No. 7329663 / Civil Case No. 77C6301. National Archives and Records Administration. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. 1865-. Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009. December 29, 1977.
  13. Carmody, Deirdre (December 30, 1977). "Female Reporter Sues Over Locker‐Room Ban". The New York Times.
  14. Special To The New York Times (December 31, 1977). "Kuhn Reacts to Suit Of Female Writer". The New York Times.
  15. "Order with Notice of Entry Judgment" (PDF). Melissa Ludtke and Time, Incorporated v. Bowie Kuhn, Commissioner of Baseball, et al. No. 7329664 / Civil Case No. 77C6301. National Archives and Records Administration. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. 1865-. Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009. September 25, 1978.
  16. "Title IX: 40 Years and Counting: Melissa Ludtke speaks about Ludtke/Time Inc. vs. Kuhn and MLB" (Video). Wellesley Athletics. Wellesley College. February 15, 2012.
  17. Barrett, Molly. "Case Summary: Ludtke v. Kuhn 461 F. Supp. 86 (D.N.Y. 1978)" (PDF). University of Denver Sports & Entertainment Law Journal.
  18. Oerman, Ashley (January 27, 2012). "Women Journalists in the 21st Century: Melissa Ludtke". Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) 2016.
  19. Ludtke, Melissa (1997). On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52-021830-7. OCLC 39640033.

Further reading
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