Melissa Ludtke

Melissa Ludtke

2025 Honoree

MELISSA LUDTKE was a reporter for Sports Illustrated, a correspondent for Time, and editor of Nieman Reports at Harvard University. Her books include On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America and Touching Home in China: in search of missing girlhoods. In Locker Room Talk she offers a compelling account of her courtroom quest to do what her male sportswriter colleagues took for granted: to talk with players in Major League Baseball’s locker rooms. She reveals how, as a 26-year-old woman, she took MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to federal court—and won.