The Women of the Court

It never fails. Once some unfair and long-standing gender, race or religious barrier has finally been broken, a certain foolishness arises. The cry goes out: Hordes of the unqualified will soon ruin the profession, sport or activity under invasion. Civilization as we know it will suffer.

The latest uproar involves a couple of talented women--Denise Kantner and Violet Palmer--who have become the first female referees of the National Basketball Assn. in particular and men’s professional sports in general. Don’t be surprised if the comments that follow sound familiar.

“It’s the principle of the thing,� says NBA superstar Charles Barkley, “I wouldn’t want a man� officiating a women’s professional basketball game. Another player says “they won’t be able to handle the pressure.� And Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls, says “I don’t believe they could be the most qualified,� even while saying it’s good that the NBA wanted to break the barrier.

Amazing, isn’t it, how jobs suddenly attain the complexity of nanotechnology or brain surgery when it’s time to open up the ranks?

Basketball is an entertaining sport and a business. The NBA has a lot of tall guys bouncing and passing around a large orange ball until they can throw it through an elevated hoop. Being a referee involves such higher-order thinking as making sure one player doesn’t hit another when he is shooting the big orange ball. Somehow, we think it’s safe to suppose that women just might be up to the task.