Thirty years ago, the commissioner for Major League Baseball barred Melissa Ludtke — then Sports Illustrated reporter and 1992 Nieman Fellow — from the locker room during Game 1 of the 1977 World Series.

Time Inc., the corporate parent of SI, soon sued MLB, and the next year a federal court ruled in Ludtke vs. Kuhn that if men can do their jobs by speaking to sweaty, half-naked athletes, so must women be allowed to do so. Ludtke has been editor of Nieman Reports since 1998.

Read her oral history recorded for The Washington Press Club Foundation