Club’s Outing May Be Its Last for Males Only

Private jets and chartered aircraft began arriving at Sonoma County Airport on Friday with members of the exclusive Bohemian Club bound for the group’s 109th encampment, which may mark the end of an all-male era.

The club boasts a membership of some of the world’s most powerful politicians and business leaders, including Ronald Reagan, George P. Shultz and Richard M. Nixon, along with a heavy representation of leaders of Fortune 500 corporations.

As usual, the club will not identify the guests at this year’s two-week encampment at the 2,700-acre reserve in secluded woods about 75 miles north of San Francisco.

Women Barred

Women have been historically barred from attending or working at the conclave, but last November the California Court of Appeal ruled that the members’ rights of free association and privacy were not sufficient to justify the club’s policy against hiring women at the encampment.

The California Supreme Court later refused to review the case, but the club has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Should the decision be allowed to stand, the club will be required to develop an affirmative-action hiring plan, monitored by the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and hire some women workers.

More than 70 “peace and justice and environmental” groups under the umbrella of the Bohemian Action Network say they will stage a demonstration today outside the Bohemian Grove’s gates, according to spokeswoman Mary Moore of Occidental, Calif.

Annual Protests

Protests are an annual feature of the encampments as demonstrators try to move the leaders who congregate.

“In the past, we’ve concentrated on issues such as El Salvador and nuclear energy,” Moore said.

“This year, we are going to point out the bizarre ceremony they call ‘The Cremation of Care,’ in which our leaders parade around in red-hooded robes and burn an effigy in a coffin in front of a 40-foot-tall owl statue,” she said. “It conjures up images of not only the Klan but weird occultism.”

The members say the mock ceremony is to signal that the business of the outside world will not be discussed during the encampment.