Mary I. O’Connor (born circa 1959) was a 1980 U.S. Olympic team rower and an orthopedic surgeon, researcher, and professor with the Mayo Clinic and Yale School of Medicine.
[1][2] She was also a member of the 1976 Yale women's rowing team that protested inequalities, starting the Title IX movement to fight sexual discrimination in college athletics.
[4][7][6] This was early in the history of women at Yale, and female athletes were being treated more like an intramural team than a varsity sport.
[3] In 1976, the nineteen members of the Yale women's crew wrote "TITLE IX" on their bodies and went into athletic director Joni Barnett's office and took off their clothes, and then rower Chris Ernst read a statement about the way they were being treated.
[5][2] In the pre-Olympic races in Europe, this team set the world's record and won a Bronze medal.
"[5] O'Connor became a resident in orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science in Rochester, Minnesota in 1985.
[1] In 2010, she became co-chair and later chair of the Movement is Life Caucus, a coalition that works on the musculoskeletal health disparities among women and minorities.