Education: Ferment at Oxford

“Would it be possible,” asked the note in the student suggestion box at Oxford’s oldest women’s college, “to serve beer in hall?” The note put Lady Margaret Hall in a ferment.

“Beer is essentially a man’s drink,” wrote six irate drys in a counter-petition. “The picture of women in the senior women’s college attempting to sink their pints would be pathetic and ridiculous.” Nonsense, cried a wet: “It’s about time we had some equality with men.”

Last week Lucy Sutherland, principal of Lady Margaret, sided with the wets. From now on, Lady Margaret’s girls may sink their pints just like undergrads at Oxford’s 23 colleges for men.