Skull and Bones' alumni trust changed the locks on the Tomb in 1991 when the seniors tapped seven women, and William F. Buckley went to court to stop the initiation

Skull and Bones was founded at Yale in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft. Its property is held by the Russell Trust Association, incorporated in 1856, the year the first wing of its windowless hall on High Street, the Tomb, was built. A Yale alumnus wrote to the Yale Alumni Magazine that the $30,000 for that wing was Russell family money. The trust also holds Deer Island in the St. Lawrence River. The society owned the south half, and in 1932 Bonesman George Douglas Miller gave the trust the rest of the island and its buildings. Yale admitted women in 1969. The society kept tapping only men. In April 1991 the 15 seniors tapped seven women for the next year's class without waiting for the alumni board. The board called the tap void, changed the locks on the Tomb and kept the doors shut for weeks. That summer the members voted 368 to 320 by mail to admit women. In September eight alumni led by William F. Buckley Jr. obtained an order from Judge Donald Celotto of New Haven Superior Court blocking the initiation of six women, set for that week. A second alumni vote in October 1991 accepted the class, and the suit was dropped^†. The trust files with the IRS as RTA Incorporated, a New Haven charity^†. RTA Incorporated reported assets of $3.9 million in fiscal 2016 and $17.07 million in fiscal 2025.