
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990                   TAG: 9004120637
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`SHRILL' WORDS FROM VMI FOUNDATION

THE 11,000 alumni of Virginia Military Institute were urged last month to "resist the urge to `speak out' " on the issue of admitting women to the school, lest they "play into the hands of those who would have this become a shrill and meaningless shouting match."

Not to worry. The VMI Foundation has done it for them.

In papers filed last week in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, the foundation suggested, it may have to "withdraw its support" of VMI if the school is forced to - horrors! - admit women.

The foundation's support, though dwarfed by the state's annual appropriation, is nonetheless considerable - roughly $3,000 per year per cadet, drawn from the $100 million private endowment raised and managed by the foundation.

The papers were filed to bolster the foundation's contention that it should be allowed to take part in VMI's court fight against federal pressure to admit women. But even if the foundation's argument is taken to be merely one of legal convenience, there's a tinge of hyperbole to it.

The legal theory seems to go something like this: (1) The foundation's purpose is to support VMI's "educational method and mission." (2) The school's "method and mission would be fundamentally changed" if women were admitted. (3) Ergo, coeducation might well put VMI at such odds with the foundation's charter that the foundation could not continue to lend support to the school.

Let's analyze this thing.

Either the courts will uphold VMI's males-only policy (and there's a better chance of it, we suspect, than many observers concede) or they won't. If they do, all this legal stuff is moot.

But let's say the courts overturn the policy. If they do, it will be because they find the policy to be in violation of federal civil-rights law (less likely) or of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (more likely). And in that event:

Either coeducation will "fundamentally" change VMI's "educational What court, having found VMI's men-only policy to be illegal or unconstitutional, would then require the foundation to cling to an illegal or unconstitutional provision of its charter? method and mission" or it won't. If it won't, then the foundation's argument falls of its own weight.

But let's say it will. If so, then coeducation would put VMI at odds with the foundation's purpose - but that purpose would be in pursuit of an illegal or unconstitutional goal. What court, having found VMI's men-only policy to be illegal or unconstitutional, would then require the foundation to cling to an illegal or unconstitutional provision of its charter?

Less absurd, but in its way more chilling, is another point raised by the foundation: that coeducation would impair its ability to raise funds for VMI. It's chilling because it suggests an underlying threat: that a VMI with women cadets would be a VMI without private (read, as a rule, alumni) support.

The foundation's fund-raising ability wouldn't be impaired by the courts' forcing coeducation on VMI. If the foundation's fund-raising ability is impaired, it would be because that's how the foundation or its contributors or both chose to react to such a ruling.

by CNB