(FORTUNE Magazine) – HARTFORD -- The Connecticut Supreme Court on Monday affirmed the right of the Boy Scouts . . . to deny positions of leadership to women . . . The ruling came in the case of Catherine N. Pollard of Milford, who first asked to become a scoutmaster in 1974. The Boy Scouts turned her down, saying boys need male role models . . . The state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities ruled in 1984 that Mrs. Pollard could be a scoutmaster, touching off the court case. The Boy Scouts say women can run its Cub Scout troops for seven-year-old boys and girls and Explorer troops for boys over 15. But women cannot lead the . . . program for boys 11 through 14 . . .

Mrs. Pollard . . . rejected the role-model argument. Women should be able to fill all Boy Scouts' posts or none of them, she said. -- From an AP dispatch.