I lived through that great step forward without knowing many of the details, but I do remember an alumni event where a much older grad was complaining about the decision. As I recall, to make it at least tolerable for such alumni, the 1969 freshman class was expanded from 800 to 1000, with the new slots allocated to women, so that "no man would be denied admission because of women." With the classes now about 50-50 that's no longer true, of course, and I seriously doubt that I would have been admitted if gender equality had been the rule in 1959. Bottom line: Admitting women was absolutely the right thing to do, but I'm selfishly happy that it didn't happen a decade earlier.
I lived through that great step forward without knowing many of the details, but I do remember an alumni event where a much older grad was complaining about the decision. As I recall, to make it at least tolerable for such alumni, the 1969 freshman class was expanded from 800 to 1000, with the new slots allocated to women, so that "no man would be denied admission because of women." With the classes now about 50-50 that's no longer true, of course, and I seriously doubt that I would have been admitted if gender equality had been the rule in 1959. Bottom line: Admitting women was absolutely the right thing to do, but I'm selfishly happy that it didn't happen a decade earlier.