National Women's Studies Association Convention in Storrs, Connecticut along with Audre Lorde, delivering her speech entitled "'Disobedience is What NWSA is Potentially About.". The theme of the convention was "Women Respond to Racism", and Rich noted the homophobia and racism that still existed "in the enclave of Women's studies itself, where lesbians are still feared and women of color are still ignored". Rich went on to say that "women of color who are found in the wrong place as defined at any given time by the white fathers will receive their retribution unseen: if they are beaten, raped, insulted, harassed, mutilated, murdered, these events will go unreported, unpunished, unconnected; and white women are not even supposed to know they occur, let alone identify with the sufferings endured." Rich asked the audience: "how disobedient will Women's Studies be in the 1980s; how will this Association address the racism, misogyny, homophobia of the university and of the corporate and militist society in which it is embedded; how will white feminist scholars and teachers and students practice disobedience to patriarchy?" Rich implored the audience to rid themselves of the idea that "by opposing racist violence, by doing anti-racist work, or by becoming feminists white women somehow cease to carry racism within them", asserting that white women are never absolved of their white privilege and must continually commit to anti-racist work while they are still in the role of the oppressor. Selected awards and honors Each year links to its corresponding "[year]() in poetry" article: 1950: Yale Younger Poets Award for A Change of World. 1952: Guggenheim Fellowship 1960: National Institute of Arts and Letters Award 1970: Shelley Memorial Award 1974: National Book Award for Poetry (a split award) for Diving into the Wreck 1979: Honorary Doctorate Smith College 1986: Inaugural Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize 1989: Honorary doctorate from Harvard University 1989: National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry 1990: Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement (for gay or lesbian writing) 1991: Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service 1991: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1992: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize 1992: Poets' Prize for Atlas of the Difficult World 1992: Frost Medal 1992: Academy of American Poets Fellowship 1994: MacArthur Fellowship 1996: Wallace Stevens Award 1997: National Medal of Arts (refused) 1999: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lannan Foundation 2006: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished