Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 1, 1991 TAG: 9104010079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Long
It is these traditions, cadets say, that help create a strong bond among the men who go here. And it is these traditions that will be tested this week when a federal judge in Roanoke hears the U.S. Justice Department argue that the 152-year-old school's all-male admissions policy is unconstitutional.
"Everyone says the change is inevitable," Michael Dudas, a first classman, or senior, said last week. "But some things are good left as they are."
By the time the courts finally decide whether women should be admitted to VMI, chances are that this year's rats, or freshmen, will have left behind guard duty, the corps and the school.
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser has said it is likely that the party that loses this case - the federal government or the school - will appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, when the trial begins at 9 a.m. Thursday, the cadets will be watching.
"VMI has an uphill battle, but there is a hill for them to climb over," said Allan Ides, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, next door to VMI. "If they do, there's a possibility of winning."
The school must show a need for keeping an all-male student body, he said. "They will need to show that their educational mission cannot be reached in any other fashion."
VMI also must show that women can receive a military education in the state, at schools like Virginia Tech that have ROTC programs. The most recent Supreme Court decision on this front came in 1982 - Mississippi University for Women vs. Hogan.
Hogan, a man, wanted to attend the all-female state-supported nursing school but was denied admissions. The court ruled 5-4 that the university had discriminated against Hogan on the basis of sex, although an exception could be made if a comparable education could be found elsewhere in the state.
Law professors point out, however, that the court has turned more conservative since that decision. "Now, it could be up for grabs," Ides said.
But Hal Krent, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said he would be surprised if VMI won. National service academies are now open to women and female troops are returning from the service in the Persian Gulf War, making this a "hard time to prove that an all-male military education is necessary," he said.
"Fifteen or 20 years ago, it would have been a different issue. The perception was that discipline would fall apart if you had a male/female situation. There was an idea of `loyalty' and `my country first.' They didn't think it would thrive with men and women mixing."
At VMI, they still don't.
\ When the question of changing VMI's admissions policy first came up, most cadets responded with an immediate "no way."
"At first, people were defensive," said Bill Canedo, a first classman from Bedford. "We said, `Hey, wait. We can't allow this.' But then, any change that's imposed on cadets causes some initial uproar."
They bought T-shirts sporting pictures of women with slashes through them. They made jokes. Reporters hounded them for a while, then left.
In recent months, thoughts of women on the post were pre-empted by the war, exams and socials.
"We basically went about our business," Canedo said.
But as the trial nears and reporters start returning, cadets are thinking again about the prospect of women enrolling at their school. They're talking about the legal aspects of the case, and they're talking about tradition.
"You'd destroy it if women came here - the camaraderie, all of the trials and tribulations," said Jeffrey Cuiper, a first classman. "Until women can co-exist with men on equal terms - until a man can go to the bathroom with a woman, take a shower with a woman - it's not going to be equal."
A woman's right to attend VMI "infringes on my liberty to attend an all-male military institution," said Cuiper, who is from Katy, Texas. "I would hope this wouldn't come to pass."
It's not that a woman couldn't endure the physical tests at VMI, said Mike Johnson, a fourth classman from Chesapeake. "Some guys couldn't go through it. It depends on your drive, how much you're willing to take. . . . But I like the system the way it is."
Besides, they say, in terms they think the government would understand, to change would cost money.
"With all of [Gov. Douglas] Wilder's cutbacks, how could we even afford to go coed?" Cuiper asked. "That's where the legal world conflicts with the real world."
The cost and logistics of going from an all-male institution to a coed school likely will come out during the trial when officials from West Point's institutional research department are called to testify.
But lawyers are quick to point out that though there are similarities, West Point and VMI are not the same.
West Point, like the other service academies, has admitted women since 1976. Andrea Hamburger, the academy's public relations director, says it cost $2 million to $3 million over five years to adapt the school for women.
When Congress decided to admit women to the service academies, it said changes would be made only to accommodate physical differences.
At West Point, the barracks are coed with separate bathrooms. Men and women take the same academic programs. The only real difference at West Point, which is about 10 percent female, is in the physical education programs. Men take wrestling and boxing, and women take self-defense, Hamburger said.
And, as in the Armywide physical fitness tests, there are different standards for men and women, derived from physical differences.
Sports teams also are divided by sex.
"Basically it's the same in everything else," Hamburger said. "In summer training experiences, women don't go to the Ranger School. But we don't send many cadets there anyway."
Dudas, the VMI cadet, said he wouldn't object to seeing women at VMI if the standards were the same all around.
"But there's an emphasis here on physical performance. Obviously the standards would have to be changed to integrate women. If the standards wouldn't change - if women were just different cadets, it would be OK. But they would have to alter the system."
He paused a minute.
"And anyway," he said, "what's wrong with tradition?"
\ As the trial nears, lawyers on both sides are tight-lipped but upbeat.
"I'm very optimistic VMI will prevail," said Robert Patterson, a Richmond attorney and VMI alumnus who represents the school. "But the decision rests with judge."
The Justice Department filed suit against VMI last year after an investigation concluded that the tax-supported institution was violating the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The investigation was sparked by a written complaint from a female high school student from Virginia who was interested in attending VMI.
The battle over admitting women has been fought on a number of fronts, including the General If the standards wouldn't change - if women were just different cadets, it would be OK. But they would have to alter the system. . . . And anyway, what's wrong with tradition? Michael Dudas VMI senior Assembly. For the past two years, Fairfax Sen. Emilie Miller has sponsored a bill that would bar discrimination of any kind at all state-supported institutions.
Each year, the bill was defeated in the Senate Health and Education Committee after Sen. Elmon Gray of Sussex County - the legislature's only VMI alumnus - said the measure was inappropriate because VMI's policy of sex discrimination was headed to trial anyway. The Senate Health and Education Committee upheld the action.
Similar legislation was considered in South Carolina earlier this year for The Citadel, the nation's only other all-male, state-supported military school. The measure, which eventually was added as a proviso to the state's budget, was defeated by almost a 2-1 ratio.
"It's embarrassing for the federal government to have to tell us to do something we should be doing anyway," said South Carolina Rep. Sarah Manly, who sponsored the legislation. "We're a sovereign state. . . . We'll be watching this [the VMI trial] very closely."
When Manly filed her bill last December, women in the military were being deployed to the Persian Gulf. And as the legislative session continued, they entered the combat zone.
"We saw one woman captured. Then another. A woman was killed in action there. And then we saw them returning. All of that seemed to validate passing legislation to open up admissions. . . . But sanity has very little to do with this. It's an emotional issue."
And a political one.
Last week, VMI attorney Patterson accused the Justice Department of trying to politicize the trial by keeping Wilder out front as a defendant and witness. Federal lawyers called the accusation baseless. Kiser ruled that Wilder would not have to testify and said the governor's role would be one of remedy - overseeing VMI's transition to a coeducational military school should they lose the case.
Wilder, a descendant of slaves who became the nation's first elected black governor, refused to take a position on the issue during his campaign or his first year in office.
Instead, he hired a private lawyer to get him dismissed from a case that would almost certainly prove a political liability to someone considering running for president.
Finally, last November, Wilder denounced VMI's all-male admissions policy, saying: "I believe that no person should be denied admission to a school supported by state funds solely because of his or her race or gender."
VMI's refusal to reconsider its admissions policy also proved a fiasco for Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, who used Wilder's attempts to wriggle out of the lawsuit as evidence that her office could not defend the school.
That, too, was seen as a thinly veiled bid by Terry to distance herself from a case that would be a political loser if she seeks, as expected, to replace Wilder in 1993.
The second-term attorney general tried other gambits: She asked Wilder to appoint a special counsel to defend the school; he refused. Then she asked Kiser's permission to name a team of outside lawyers from Richmond, Roanoke and Atlanta to defend VMI.
Those lawyers - a former U.S. attorney general, a former state attorney general and several well-known East Coast lawyers - will be defending the single-sex admissions policy. Lawyers from Washington and Danville will defend the state. None of the lawyers will be paid with state tax money.
\ At VMI, a black-and-white photograph of Wilder taken at last year's commencement hangs outside of the office of Maj. Gen. John Knapp.
A signature is scrawled across the front: "Best Wishes, Gov. Douglas Wilder."
Inside the office, the school's superintendent sits at his desk in front of state and school flags, preparing facts and figures for his upcoming testimony in U.S. District Court.
Knapp is trying to calculate how much living space is available for the cadets, who live three to a room. He has not prepared any figures on how VMI would have to change to accommodate women. "If I did that, they'd subpoena my notes," he said.
Under the advice of lawyers, Knapp declined to talk about the case. But he did defend the school.
"We're not anti-feminists here," he said. "If we're archaic because we want to continue an old style of education, then we're archaic.
"People ask me sometimes if I realize I'm breaking the law. Well, I'm not breaking the law as it's written. And if they decide to alter the law, I'll obey that law, too."
Staff writer Daniel Howes contributed to this story.
by CNB