One of the things I can see from my office window is the spire of the Scottish Rite Masonic Cathdral. It’s one of this city’s landmarks, and it’s a beautiful, imposing limestone edifice. It deserves the name of cathedral.
I’ve been inside it a few times. Newly admitted attorneys are sworn in there, and that is where I took the Bar Exam, lo these many years ago. There are long ties between the Indiana Bar and the Indiana Masons.
And that has bothered me since I learned of it. When I was first admitted, in the early 80′s, it seemed like every influential person in the Indiana Bar Association and on the bench, or nearly so, was a Mason. They insisted that nothing was discussed in lodge, and I’m sure that was true, but after, at social hour, or over lunch with a lodge brother? People prefer to work with the folks they know and socialize with. It was a version of the Good Old Boy network.
That version was particularly distressing because the Masons specifically bar women from membership. Oh, sure, we could be attorneys. We could have our own committee in the Bar Association. But we could never become the people the men in power socialized with, because their primary social outlet was a secret society closed to women.
It’s better now, but not because the Good Old Boys ever saw there was anything wrong. It’s better now because their sons didn’t follow in their footsteps, and the old boys are getting tired and stepping down. But new attorneys are still tested and sworn in at the Masonic Cathedral. I am reminded of the fact every time I look out my office window.