Andrea Abat ’89 within the fall of 1985. That semester, she and two of her classmates grew to become the primary ladies in Texas A&M’s Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band.
Courtesy of Andrea Abat ’89
Editor’s observe: This story is a part of an occasional collection concerning the impression of Title IX.
Andrea Abat ’89 nonetheless remembers how she felt the primary time she noticed the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band carry out.
This picture of Andrea Abat, Jennifer Peeler and Carol Rockwell appeared on the entrance web page of Texas A&M’s scholar newspaper shortly after their first observe with the Aggie Band.
The Battalion – August 28, 1985
It was the autumn of 1984, her senior 12 months at Houston’s Memorial Excessive College, and he or she was visiting a buddy at Texas A&M: “I simply had a kind of cloud-parting, dove-descending moments,” she recollects, and from that second on, she was decided to affix their ranks.
The following 12 months, Abat and two of her classmates grew to become the first ladies admitted to the band after a 90-year historical past as an all-male unit.
“Moving into, I had no preconceived notions about breaking limitations or something like that. I simply wished to be a part of this wonderful band and what they did,” Abat mentioned. “Till I bought to the Quad within the fall of 1985, I wasn’t actually conscious of what was taking place and what an enormous change it was going to be for the college.”
Finally, it was one in an extended collection of adjustments within the Corps of Cadets set in movement by the 1972 federal regulation that sought to remove discrimination on the premise of intercourse in larger schooling. It was added as an replace to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which utilized solely to discrimination in employment.
However even in a post-Title IX world, there was nonetheless loads of work to be accomplished. Abat mentioned she’s going to all the time be grateful to the various brave ladies who helped clear her path to the north finish of Kyle Area.
“It’s great to be someplace in that chain,” mentioned Abat, who went on to function an engineer within the U.S. Army, a particular agent for the Environmental Safety Company and now a director for the Carnival Company’s Incident Evaluation Group. “And it’s very gratifying now to look out throughout a sea of cadets and see loads of ladies in positions of management.”
Altering Instances
Ladies had been formally allowed to enroll at Texas A&M as full degree-seeking college students in 1963, due to President James Earl Rudder’s resolution to combine the college alongside racial and gender traces.
In response to former A&M historical past professor Henry Dethloff’s “A Centennial Historical past of Texas A&M,” 150 ladies had been enrolled on the school that first fall, and their numbers continued to climb within the years that adopted: “… change was clearly within the air,” Dethloff wrote.
The Corps of Cadets, nevertheless, remained all-male regardless of efforts from numerous feminine college students and a few mother and father.
Roxie Pranglin ’78 speaks with an Army consultant throughout her freshman orientation.
The Battalion – June 12, 1974
By the Seventies, the prospect of admitting ladies to A&M’s army coaching applications was nonetheless extremely controversial. However in response to Aggie historian John A. Adams ’73, it was beginning to appear like it could be inevitable — particularly as extra ladies entered the armed forces and started to fill a greater diversity of roles.
In “Keepers of the Sprit,” Adams’ e book on the historical past of the Corps, he notes that integration of school ROTC applications was quick turning into a excessive precedence for the army, with particular consideration paid to massive, federally-funded establishments like A&M and the service academies.
Positive sufficient, by 1973, Corps Commandant Col. Tom Parsons was receiving “repeated inquiries from the Division of the Army on the standing of ladies within the Corps of Cadets,” Adams wrote. And naturally, the passage of Title IX the 12 months prior had not escaped the discover of Parsons or Texas A&M President Jack Okay. Williams.
“Williams, in addition to the Commandant, many alumni, and lots of the cadets in command positions knew that it was solely a matter of time earlier than the brand new federal tips had been broadened and enforced for all school actions,” Adams wrote.
With that in thoughts, Williams and Parsons made a major resolution: Texas A&M would turn into the primary main army school within the nation to confess ladies into its officer coaching program.
“This was earlier than any ladies had been in any of the service academies, or the Virginia Army Institute or the Citadel,” mentioned Roxie Pranglin ’78, who joined A&M’s first-ever class of feminine cadets within the fall of 1974. “We had been the primary Corps of Cadets-type surroundings that allowed ladies to take part, and was it accomplished completely? No. However I imagine it was accomplished with good intentions.”
The change had come swiftly. Juniors on Corps workers throughout the earlier faculty 12 months had been tasked with making ready an in depth plan for the mixing of ladies. They known as it “The Minerva Plan” after the Roman goddess of knowledge, justice and conflict. When Pranglin and the opposite ladies arrived on the Quad that first semester, they had been organized into the all-female Firm W-1: “Minerva’s Most interesting.”
A Rocky Begin
The transition into Corps life was not a very seamless one, Pranglin mentioned. The ladies of W-1 didn’t get uniforms till the next semester, they usually weren’t capable of reside on the Quad till the next faculty 12 months.
“Our numbers fluctuated every day, folks would be a part of up and folks would drop out, and we lived all over, so there was lots of coming and getting into these first weeks and months,” mentioned Pranglin, who later went on to a 30-year profession in larger schooling. “Everybody was actually making an attempt to determine what to do with us, so the foundations form of modified commonly.”
One early level of rivalry was whether or not the ladies needs to be allowed to “whip out” — a conventional introduction and handshake between cadets. Pranglin mentioned many male cadets would simply depart the ladies standing with their arms outstretched.
“If they simply refused to satisfy you, that was one factor,” she mentioned. “Once they then proceeded to inform you what they considered you and the way you had been ruining the Corps of Cadets and Texas A&M, that was one other.”
This picture from The Battalion exhibits a bunch of W-1 cadets within the fall of 1974, earlier than they acquired their uniforms.
The Battalion – September 11, 1974
Nonetheless, the small band of ladies was not with out allies, each on the Quad and off. The obvious and visual had been W-1’s first officers — male upperclassmen who volunteered to steer the feminine cadets by means of their tumultuous first years.
Their unique commanding officer, Steven “Don” Roper ’75, mentioned that whereas it didn’t make him highly regarded on the time, he stays happy with the work he and others did throughout these preliminary semesters.
“My purpose was, on the finish of the 12 months, to principally stroll away standing as an outfit,” Roper mentioned. “And we did greater than that — we excelled in sure areas. We actually excelled in unity, and we excelled in studying learn how to defend one another’s backs, as a result of that’s precisely what we did.”
The Push For Progress
First launched within the spring of 1975, the feminine Corps of Cadets uniform would evolve considerably within the years that adopted, in the end turning into far more much like the male cadets’ uniforms.
The Battalion – January 22, 1975
Within the spring of 1975, W-1 made its first public debut in full uniform, marching throughout Simpson Drill Area on the annual Army Day assessment. They acquired a standing ovation, Roper mentioned.
“That was an enormous a part of the 12 months for us,” he recalled. “Every little thing that we put into it had turn into price it on that day.”
The ladies of W-1 would proceed to face pushback, particularly after they began dwelling on the Quad the next semester. However as Pranglin’s classmate Ann Sheridan ’78 recollects, they had been beginning to discover their footing.
“You discovered that the pleasant face isn’t essentially pleasant, however the man chewing you out, in the event that they’re making an attempt to make you higher, is your buddy,” mentioned Sheridan. She later served 4 years on lively obligation within the U.S. Army earlier than transferring into the Army reserves and pursuing a profession as knowledgeable engineer.
Slowly however absolutely, the ladies of the Corps had been making new alternatives for themselves, too. The Ladies’s Drill Staff was fashioned and shortly discovered appreciable success in competitors: “We had been good,” Pranglin mentioned.
It was on that group that she and Sheridan grew to become acquainted with Melanie Zentgraf ’80, a W-1 underclassman who later grew to become a founding member of Squadron 14 — a second all-female outfit particularly for Air Drive cadets.
“The category of ’80 wished to be distinctive,” Sheridan recollects, and Zentgraf match the invoice. “She was tall, she was bodily succesful, she discovered in a short time, she was extremely clever.”
Zentgraf additionally wished to affix the Coloration Guard, one in every of a number of particular models within the Corps together with the Aggie Band and Ross Volunteers that had remained off-limits to feminine cadets.
“She tried out and the category of ’79 advised her, ‘We didn’t suppose you’d do effectively since you’re a woman, however you’re the greatest candidate,’” Sheridan mentioned. “However then my class mentioned it ‘wasn’t army’ for a girl to be on Coloration Guard.”
Zentgraf was denied membership. And after repeated makes an attempt to take care of the problem internally, her expertise in the end led her to take authorized motion towards the college. A 1979 class-action swimsuit argued that Texas A&M was violating Title IX by allowing intercourse discrimination within the Corps’ particular models.
From the very begin, the case was each high-profile and historic. When the U.S. Division of Justice moved to affix the swimsuit later that 12 months, an Related Press report famous it was the primary time the federal authorities had taken motion to implement Title IX because the regulation was handed.
As Pranglin recollects, the swimsuit was extremely divisive, and for Zentgraf, the backlash was overwhelming.
“Melanie Zentgraf had a tough time,” Pranglin mentioned. “And whether or not anybody agrees that she ought to have filed the lawsuit or not, I can inform you for positive that nothing modified till she did.”
Melanie Zentgraf ’80 photographed by The Battalion shortly after U.S. District Choose Ross Sterling formally accepted a settlement in her swimsuit towards the college.
The Battalion – January 25, 1985
In 1985, lengthy after Zentgraf had graduated, was commissioned and entered the U.S. Air Drive, the Texas Lawyer Basic agreed to a settlement that may require A&M to actively embrace feminine participation in all areas of the Corps — particular models included.
That very same 12 months, Abat and others had been allowed to affix and march with the Aggie Band, and in 1986, A&M had its first feminine Ross Volunteers: Mandy Schubert ’87 and Nancy Hedgecock ’87.
As Zentgraf advised the Related Press on the day of the settlement, “It’s over, but it surely’s simply begun.” Zentgraf handed away from most cancers in 2020, after an extended and profitable profession flying for FedEx.
Marching Ahead
Andrea Abat poses with different senior cadets at Ultimate Evaluate in 1989.
Courtesy of Andrea Abat ’89
Positive sufficient, Abat’s time within the Corps and band helped pave the way in which for additional integration. The Aggie Band’s A-Battery grew to become the primary co-ed outfit, and their dwelling quarters grew to become the primary built-in dorm facility when Abat moved in with the remainder of her squadmates in 1986.
By 1990, the all-female W-1 and Squadron 14 had been eradicated, and co-ed models began to turn into the norm.
“I believe we do a disservice to younger folks in the event that they’re not within the midst of each genders, as a result of they’re going to must take care of each genders in the true world,” Abat mentioned. “It was an awesome factor and the best factor for the college.”
She mentioned her time within the Aggie Band additionally helped to dispel the parable that integrating the Corps and its particular models would dilute their distinct character.
“The truth is, change is all the time troublesome,” Abat mentioned. “I believe if you happen to distill it down, that’s what folks had been afraid of, that if ladies got here into the band, it could flip into simply every other band.”
However as Abat notes, “the band didn’t crumble.” And neither did the remainder of the Corps. Extra numerous than ever, it continues to coach cadets for no matter could await them after commencement, simply because it did for these trailblazing ladies of the Seventies and 80s.
“If you happen to have a look at the historical past of those ladies, 15 years down the street, we already had 5 full colonels,” Roper mentioned. “Different ladies have taken on very sturdy roles, every part from the Environmental Safety Company proper on down into enterprise and the clergy. Every of these locations they went benefited from having this explicit group of ladies be a part of their group.”
