NATION : Elks Vote to Keep Barring Women but Ease the Rules for Minorities

Elks club members from across the nation voted today against allowing women to join their fraternal organization but in favor of a membership rule that could make it easier for nonwhite men to join.

Donald Dapelo, the newly installed Grand Exalted Ruler of the Elks, said the vote against admitting women was by a show of hands and there was no count. “I wouldn’t say it was close, not at all,” Dapelo said. “I’d say it was overwhelmingly defeated.”

In St. George, Utah, a woman who was rejected for Elks membership filed a sex discrimination lawsuit in 1987 that is still pending.

Approved was the proposal to eliminate a rule allowing any three members of an Elks lodge to reject, or “blackball,” a prospective member. Some said that rule made it harder for minorities to join the organization. Under the new rule, a two-thirds majority of a lodge’s members can approve a new member.

Passage of a resolution to do away with the “three blackball” rule was urged by the Lompoc, Calif., Elks Lodge after two black applicants were rejected.