Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 2, 1990 TAG: 9003023085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The action was taken on behalf of an unidentified female high school student from Virginia who complained to the department last spring that she was prohibited from attending the 1,300-cadet school in Lexington.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, contends that the admissions policy violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of 14th Amendment to the Constitution. It asks that the court order the state to "implement a plan to remedy fully their discriminatory policies."
"The attorney general has certified that he received a written, signed complaint from an individual to the effect that she has been denied admission to a public college by reason of sex," the lawsuit said.
Gov. Douglas Wilder, VMI Superintendent John Knapp, the state Council of Higher Education and the school's 17-member governing board were named as defendants in the suit, which was signed by U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh.
The Justice Department also asked the court to dismiss the lawsuits already filed by state Attorney General Mary Sue Terry and the VMI Foundation Inc., the school's private fund-raising arm.
Those separate suits, filed Feb. 5, asked that the school's admissions policy be declared legal and constitutional. The VMI Board of Visitors reaffirmed its single-sex policy the same day.
Late Thursday, VMI officials declined to comment on the federal lawsuit, referring reporters' questions to the state attorney general's office in Richmond.
"We've not had an opportunity to review and reflect on it," said Bert Rohrer, a spokesman for Terry. "We're not going to have any comment today."
The Justice Department's decision to file its sex-discrimination suit in Roanoke dispels speculation that the federal government would take the action to courts in Richmond or Northern Virginia, where it might get a more sympathetic judge.
"I really didn't see any benefit [for the Justice Department] in Richmond," said Allan Ides, a professor of federal jurisdiction at Washington and Lee University Law School. Keeping the case in Roanoke "is kind of a way of saying [to VMI], `We're going to win anyhow. You want to do it in Roanoke? We'll do it in Roanoke.'
"I never saw what the strategic advantage was of filing the case in Roanoke. A federal court is a federal court," he said.
In the separate suits filed on VMI's behalf, Terry and the VMI Foundation maintained that VMI's single-sex admissions policy was sanctioned by Title IX of the Education Act Amendments of 1972.
But Ides disagreed. "Title IX could not give state institutions the right to discriminate on the basis of sex because then Title IX would be in violation of the 14th Amendment.
"It's the 14th Amendment that's going to be controlling the case," he predicted.
On Jan. 30, Wilder and Joseph Spivey, director of the board of visitors, received letters from the Justice Department saying the government would sue the state for sex discrimination if a plan to admit women to VMI was not unveiled by Feb. 20.
Instead, Terry, the board and the private foundation answered the letter with two lawsuits. The response mirrored alumni predictions that VMI would fight the order instead of admit women.
The foundation's suit argued that "the forced admission of women will eliminate the option of a unique undergraduate experience for men, while providing no increased educational opportunities for women."
Terry's suit, representing VMI as a necessary component in the state system of diverse higher education, maintained that "women are not denied equal educational opportunity by VMI's admission policy."
VMI got $11 million in state aid this year, nearly half of its $25 million budget. All students are enrolled in ROTC and therefore receive federal aid. About 75 percent of VMI men receive commissions in the armed forces.
The federal service academies have admitted women since 1976, and Virginia Tech - the only other school in the state with a residential corps of cadets - began including women in its corps in 1973.
Many VMI cadets and fiercely loyal alumni maintain that women would fundamentally alter life in the four-story barracks, a stone-colored building with neither locks nor shades on the doors and windows. They fear the school would make special concessions for women, ruining the egalitarian lifestyle they revere.
The Justice Department also is reviewing complaints from two women who want to attend The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., the nation's only other public military college that admits only men to its corps of cadets. Women have been granted degrees through the school's evening and graduate programs since 1966.
Last month, The Citadel rejected the application of a female high school senior from South Carolina because "being male is a requirement," school officials said. A spokesman declined to comment Thursday on the Justice Department's suit against VMI.
by CNB