Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991 TAG: 9104090638
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser denied the motion, saying the court needed to hear a full record before reaching any conclusions. "This decision should not be made on less than a full exposition," he said. "We need some questions answered."
The courtroom in the Poff Federal Building "is a first stop in this case," Kiser said. He had predicted earlier that the loser would appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"VMI's admissions policy is substantially related to its mission," William Poff, a Roanoke lawyer representing the state-supported institution, told Kiser as the trial entered its fourth day. "The continuation of a single-sex policy is not a violation of equal-protection laws."
Poff and others loyal to VMI have said the school's traditions - including barracks life and the "rat line" - have formed a unity among students that makes the school unique. By admitting women, he said, echoing the words of an expert witness for the government, "It would be a different VMI." And the state would be swapping one type of educational diversity for another.
"The judgment of how to achieve diversity is for the state and board of visitors, not for . . . the Justice Department to make," Poff said.
But that arguement doesn't hold if it has no constitutional basis, said the Justice Department's Nathaniel Douglas. "Women should have the right to choose whatever school they want to go to, and one group of people - be it cadets, alumni or the board of visitors - can't deny a constitutional right because they don't want women there."
Douglas said women should not be excluded from the Lexington school because VMI "feels women are handicapped and can't compete as well as men.
"VMI doesn't want them there. It's tradition. They just don't want them there."
The Justice Department tried Monday to show that women have been successfully integrated into the U.S. Military Academy, the service academy it deems to be most like VMI.
Attorneys had indicated early that they would draw parallels between West Point and VMI during the trial, which began Thursday.
Col. Patrick Toffler, who graduated from West Point in 1968 and returned to direct institutional research, said he was "struck by the fact that so little had changed" since women were admitted.
"The only thing that was remarkable that one could have noticed was the fact that women were there," said Toffler, the last witness called by the government. And after a time, that became less noticeable, too, he said.
The academy first admitted women under a congressional order in 1976, and today, about 10 percent of its cadets are female. VMI, a state-supported school in Lexington, still maintains a 152-year-old all-male admissions policy.
"The integration of women has been successfully accomplished," Toffler said, adding that they had been accepted by their male peers.
But under a lengthy cross-examination, Toffler said there is a perception among some cadets that integration was a failure. About 54 percent of the women said in a 1990 survey that integration was not a success.
Toffler also said some cadets did not feel they were being treated as equals.
It is the equality issue that strikes a chord deep within VMI alumni and staff members. The school's attorneys say admitting women to VMI will destroy it - and destroy the idea that all cadets are the same, an image VMI has worked hard to create.
"Have you ever had a group of men in a platoon or company where every man was equal - where every man did things the same way?" the Justice Department's Douglas asked Toffler.
"Never."
Toffler said the differences between the treatment of men and women at West Point are based mostly on physiological differences.
"Maybe some cadets have not come to understand what it's all about. . . . Some resent the fact that they have to do something at one level and another person doesn't have to."
Men, for example, have to do pullups while women do flexed-arm hangs. Men take boxing and wrestling while women study self-defense.
There have been other modifications, too. Some obstacles on an indoor course emphasizing upper-body strength were removed. Cadets no longer run in combat boots but in running shoes; they no longer carry heavy M-14s, but lighter weapons.
Toffler said many of these changes simply follow Army guidelines and were not made just for women.
Other changes were.
The school has an extracurricular club that focuses on women's issues. And chain locks were added to the doors of the barracks.
The locks came after some women complained of receiving unwanted male visitors in the middle of the night, Toffler said.
He told defense attorney William Clineburg that more than half of the school's females had complained about some type of sexual harassment - from simply receiving unwanted attention from male cadets to more complex and serious harassment.
A memo, issued after an advisory committee on women in the service visited West Point, said the issue of sexual harassment was "a salient concern of women cadets" when representatives visited campus, Clineburg said.
Toffler said it was not surprising that the issue came up frequently because representatives had come to the campus to discuss gender concerns.
He said harassment issues would require continuous attention with every incoming class.
Female cadets at West Point have held many positions of authority, Toffler said.
At Virginia Tech, "Women have held all positions, from platoon leader to regimental commander, the most senior corps position," said Maj. Gen. Stanton Musser, commandant of the corps.
He said there are many similarities between the two schools. The tradition of having to memorize certain rules and items about the school's history, for example, are recorded in a notebook comparable to the "rat bible" at VMI.
But the corps is part of a larger, looser school, instead of one where the military atmosphere oozes into every activity.
While all cadets live together in a dorm, some civilian women share the bathroom facilities and live on the top floor. Cadets are allowed to be married, and if they are, they are excused from barracks life.
Two women in Tech's corps would want to get the "VMI experience" if they had the chance, Musser said.
Asked whether VMI would have to create an environment more like Tech's to accommodate women, Musser said, "In my opinion, they would."
by CNB