Late 1980s and 1990s > Women and the Core
Women and The Core
On May 12, 1987 Columbia College graduated its first, fully coeducational class.
Butler Banner
At the University's Commencement in 1989, Laura Hotchkiss Brown (GS 1989) and four friends attempted to hang a 140-foot-long banner bearing the names of eight women writers – Sappho, Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, Bronte, Dickinson, and Woolf – above the names of the male writers inscribed on the northern façade of Butler Library. The students were stopped by Security, and the banner was removed. With the support of the Libraries and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the banner was subsequently displayed on the Butler façade in September and October of 1989.
