I would like to thank you, Class of 2005, for inviting me to be your commencement speaker. I am thoroughly honored and thrilled to be back under the elm trees for graduation. It is hard for me to believe that 30 years ago I was sitting in your place. But I’ve got to say, looking at all of you, I definitely feel like a graduate of the class of 1975.
I also want to thank Kate, Erin, Jane, and Sarah for taking the time to talk to me about the Class of 2005. I am impressed with your accomplishments, unity, and future plans. I am especially impressed with your individuality. I understand some of you are continuing your education in a variety of areas, some of you are taking a gap year, and some are immediately entering the working world. I also understand that your class is worried about getting jobs, but also many of you feel some burnout after a rigorous four years. I am here to tell you that your fears and concerns are not unique, and they are very similar to those expressed by my graduating class.
The Class of 1975 was also made up of very different and unique women. I certainly remember my first day as a freshman, arriving and seeing my room in Mary Routt Hall, feeling a little apprehensive because I had a single room and did not have a roommate. I know it sounds crazy now because you all fight for single rooms. But in 1971, over 90% of the rooms were singles.
Mary Routt at the time was configured into suites of four rooms with a shared bathroom. One of my suitemates, a sophomore from Washington, was a very good artist, and heavily into philosophy – two areas, I must say, that were probably my weakest. My other suitemate, from Kansas City, was a champion swimmer who would get up every morning at 6 a.m. to swim on her own; I didn’t even know 6 a.m. existed back then. Finally, my other suitemate, from Ontario, was very involved in politics, and became very passionate about political issues I didn’t even know existed.
And then there was me: an 18-year-old from Glendale, California, who really didn’t feel strongly about much of anything and thought she might want to go to law school when she graduated. Talk about four distinct individuals! But what a perfect suite; we became the best of friends and learned so much from each other and the rest of our class because of our uniqueness.
We were a small class-94 women-and our lives were shaped by our experiences and our closeness. From our candlelit dinners (yes, we had them on a regular basis and were required to dress up) to our Sunday brunches in our pajamas (because each dorm had its own dining room so we could get away with it) we forged relationships that last to this day. We were shaped by our experiences just as you have been shaped by yours. We had the Vietnam War, and its end, as well as Watergate. You, as a class, have had 9/11, as well as the war in Iraq. But I can’t think of a better place than Scripps College to be exposed to such significant events. To have had the closeness and support of unique women during such times, but to also have had the curiosity and the intellect to explore the “why” of these events.
My education and experiences at Scripps College gave me, in my opinion, a tool that has allowed me to pursue a career that, while non-traditional, has given me immense satisfaction for the last 26 years. Scripps with its close-knit and supportive environment, and its professors, who challenged me to apply what I was learning to my own life experiences, developed my ability to be a dreamer.
The word “dream” is defined as an aspiration, a goal, an aim to conceive of something; to imagine as possible. Poet Carl Sandburg says, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
I entered Scripps College with the idea that I wanted to be an attorney. However, when I met an FBI agent who told me that he spent his days talking to people, putting pieces of information together like a mystery novel to develop a prosecutable case against a “bad guy,” my ability to dream took over. The practice of law paled in comparison. I wanted to experience what I thoroughly enjoyed reading about in my passion (which I still have today, I hate to admit – mystery novels) even though I had never had any exposure to law enforcement (which I’m sure my parents were thankful for) and the closest I’d ever been to a gun was seeing police officers wearing them.
Choosing a career as a special agent in the FBI in 1978 was certainly out of the ordinary. While women have been special agents in the FBI as early as 1922, the door for female special agents was only open for a short time, and finally opened for good in 1972.
Throughout its long history, though, the FBI has depended on the contributions of professional women employees. I was fortunate: I came into the FBI when women were more accepted as agents. Alaska Davidson was 54 years old when she was appointed to serve the FBI in October, 1922. She earned $7 a day, and her education consisted of three years of public school. After assignment to New York, she was transferred to our Washington, D.C., field office, where the special agent in charge announced to her, there was no particular work for a woman agent in his office. Following that vote of no confidence, Mr. Hoover requested her resignation. She resigned.
There were two other early women agents, but they too resigned under pressure. Leonore Huston was the last of the early agents. It is said that two years after Leonore Huston left the FBI, in 1928, she was confined to a hospital, suffering from hallucinations, and threatening to shoot Mr. Hoover if she was released. I wonder if he knew this when he decided against hiring any more female agents. In fact, it would be 46 years later, and just days after his death, before women would be allowed to serve the FBI again as special agents. And I’ll talk more about that in a moment.
Throughout the FBI’s rich history, women have played important roles. In our early days, women served almost exclusively in traditional jobs as secretaries and file clerks. During war time, women in the FBI, like everywhere else in America, began to train and work in jobs previously dominated by men. By 1948, one-third of the FBI’s employees were women. Women held technical and complex positions, and at times they volunteered to help out male agents by posing as their dinner dates or by eavesdropping on conversations in ladies’ rooms. In the 1950s, women began to show a real interest in becoming special agents, but the Bureau’s policy prohibited their hiring, citing the need for a stream-lined force, hazards on the job, and problems associated with transfers. Change was very slow in coming. Let me quote from the 1971 policy statement in the FBI:
“It is not the intent of the FBI to confine the special agent position to males without there being very good reason to do so: lurking in the minds of those bent on defying the law must be the ever-present concern for the prowess and ability of the FBI agent. The response by our agents must be quick and is frequently military in nature, with one man supported by others making the initial move, such as bounding into a room. He must create the impression that he is intrepid, forceful, aggressive, dominant, and resolute. Our work involves basically man-against-man: it is a body contact profession.”
I’d like to tell you that bounding in a room in an intrepid way is not something I do on a daily basis.
After a lawsuit and series of executive orders-and just nine days after Mr. Hoover’s death-the policy was changed. Acting Director Bell Patrick Wade III issued a press statement announcing that the agent position would be open to women. He wanted to convince the public that the FBI belonged to all the people of the Untied States. On July 17, 1972, two unique women were sworn in as the FBI’s first women agents in contemporary history. About the only thing they had in common was that they were at least 5’7″ tall, a height requirement which would not be lifted for all agents, male and female, until three years later. They were a former nun, Miss Joanne Piers, and a Marine, Mrs. Durali.
I personally have been witness to many dynamic changes within the FBI, having signed on with the agency over 26 years ago. And, eight transfers ago. As the president said, I was the 91st female out of 10,000 special agents. Trust me when I tell you that when I showed up in Chicago, my first office, they knew everything about me. Now, I’m being rather general about what they knew about me, because several years ago I was giving a presentation in Baltimore, and I stated that I was convinced that since I was so unique to the office, because there was only a few women, that they absolutely even knew my undergarment size. Little did I know that there was press in the audience, and splashed across the metro section of the Baltimore Sun the next day was the topic of my undergarment size. So I’m very careful now about what I say.
Some of the changes in the FBI are amusing, some amazing. I’ll mention a few. Some may cringe when I mention this, but believe it or not, the FBI once had a series in their monthly newsletter called, “Miss Print.” Each month, a respectable two-page photo spread featured a young woman working at Washington, D.C., headquarters or at another one of our field offices. The series was discontinued in 1977, thank heavens. The magazine also had a feature section called, “The Feminine Slant,” which highlighted fashion tips, knacks for knitting, and recipes for mouth-watering delights like pineapple cheese balls.
The FBI’s first black female agent was hired in 1976, and the first Asian American female agent was hired thereafter. In 1981, the FBI made a commitment to hiring greater numbers of women agents, and to make physical requirements comparable, rather than identical, to men.
Speaking of the physical requirements, I’ll never forget my first boxing session at the FBI academy. Yes, we were required to box, but we wore headgear. The philosophy of boxing back then was to help teach you how to “take a punch”-and thank heavens I’ve never had to take a punch-and how to protect yourself. My headgear was too large, so the first time my classmate gave me a light punch to the face, the headgear spun around my head and I couldn’t see for the rest of the session. The next time I stuck a towel under the headgear to make it tighter, and I looked like some sheik with the towel trailing down my back. I was fortunate that except for one exception the males in my class did not try to kill the women, especially since most of us never boxed before. The one exception thought it was fun to box with the women until the rest of the males in the class objected by assuring the most experienced boxers chose him as partner. Then he stopped deciding that he wanted to box with the women.
Another outcome of change was to allow women to be assigned cases equal to men and across both investigative programs of that day, criminal and security.
On October 5, 1985, another event made FBI history. Sadly, that was the day our first woman agent died in the line of duty. Robin Ackers was the 35 th agent to die in the line of duty.
Times have changed in other ways. Today women agents may still pose as dinner dates, but they are also major case agents, supervisors, executives, mentors, program managers, and voices of the future. Women in the FBI play a different role than they did 50 or 20 or 10 years ago.
In the mid-1970s, we had only a handful of women agents. Today we have over 2,000, and women constitute almost 18% of the total agent workforce. In the 1970s, women in management were unheard of. Today women, both agent and support, are entering management in greater and greater numbers. We have several women executives today.
My life in the FBI was not particularly easy during the early years, but I was a dreamer who was willing to chart a new course, to accept a new challenge, and to use obstacles as a foundation for change. My dream was rather small compared to other women. We’ve had women succeed in almost every career imaginable, from Supreme Court justices to astronauts to heads of Fortune 500 companies.
And how strongly do I believe Scripps College provided me with the tools to succeed? As the president stated, my daughter, Kelly, will be attending Scripps as a freshman next fall.
So my advice to you, Class of 2005: take advantage of what Scripps College has provided to you and allow yourselves to dream. You are only limited by your imagination.
Congratulations, and thank you.