Home > Programs > Catholic Studies

Schlafly Controversy Proves Her Continuing Relevance
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Posted: Friday, May 16, 2008

ARTICLE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Publication Date: May 15, 2008

After more than four decades in the national spotlight, Phyllis Schlafly still has what it takes to generate controversy. The best-selling author and St. Louis native reprised a familiar role as the target of protests this month when officials at her alma mater, Washington University, announced their intention to award her an honorary degree at Friday's commencement ceremony.

Response from Schlafly's critics came fast and furious: More than a dozen Washington University law professors signed a letter to chancellor Mark Wrighton denouncing Schlafly's "polarizing, anti-intellectual positions" and calling on the university to rescind the honor. A group of students launched an anti-Schlafly Facebook Web page and threatened to don white armbands at graduation and turn their backs to the stage when Schlafly is honored.

The ruckus made national headlines, with a chorus of Schlafly critics coming out of the woodwork to remind us again why this octogenarian is a dangerous woman.

None of this is new to Schlafly. The conservative activist has drawn fire ever since she took center stage in the 1970s-era battle against the Equal Rights Amendment, which she and her grass-roots coalition of traditionally minded women successfully defeated to the horror of the feminist establishment.

Schlafly's mix of a pretty-and-prim persona with laser-sharp wit and a contrarian streak have made her a woman radical feminists love to hate. She has been burned in effigy, smacked in the face with a pie and even targeted with bomb threats. During a 1973 debate about the ERA, Betty Friedan famously said she wanted to burn Schlafly at the stake. Schlafly replied with characteristic aplomb: "I'm glad you said that because it just shows the intemperate nature of proponents of the ERA."

Such cheerful rejoinders infuriate Schlafly's critics. And even more irritating than what Schlafly says is who she is: an educated, accomplished and articulate woman who achieved the successes that modern feminism promised American women without toeing the feminist ideological line.

Long before women's liberation activists began burning their bras and bewailing patriarchy, Schlafly was shattering glass ceilings that she stubbornly refused to recognize. She worked her way through college at Washington University during World War II by firing ammunition rounds at a munitions plant at nights. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, earned a master's degree in government at Harvard, then worked for a Washington, D.C.-based think tank before returning to St. Louis to marry her husband.

While her radical feminist counterparts were championing abortion on demand and ridiculing marriage as a "comfortable concentration camp," Schlafly was running for Congress, traveling cross-country to defend traditional moral values and earning a law degree from Washington University, all while raising her six children.

Schlafly's activism made pro-life and pro-family concerns a crucial part of America's political debates and mobilized millions of women who felt marginalized and misrepresented by the feminist establishment. Although derided as alarmist, many of Schlafly's warnings about the fallout of radical feminist ideology proved prescient, as attested to by our current debates over everything from judicial activism and gay marriage to unisex bathrooms and a military draft for women.

The continuing relevance of Schlafly goes a long way toward explaining her continued vilification by opinion elites. One need not agree with everything Schlafly says to recognize the irony of the law professors' claim that they oppose Schlafly because of her "anti-intellectualism," not her political views, even as they cite her views on political and social issues as proof of her alleged anti-intellectualism. Apparently, true intellectuals can come to only one conclusion on these issues, and Phyllis Schlafly failed the litmus test.

The outrage over Schlafly only underscores the need to honor this woman as a reminder to politically correct academics and their students that not all intellectuals think alike and not all successful women fit the feminist mold.

-- Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.