Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104110104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG/ HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It's inconceivable to me," the Harvard sociologist said Wednesday when his videotaped testimony was played in U.S. District Court.
Even women who were, as Riesman called them, "more macho than thou" would not be able to deal with rats in the way that VMI now deals with rats - as equals and with little mercy.
The rat system is an initiation for VMI freshmen. It is sometimes physical, sometimes psychological, always rigorous and often humiliating.
Riesman, 82, an expert witness for attorneys defending VMI's all-male tradition, was not the first during this trial to say: "I think that if women were admitted to VMI, the whole program would collapse."
The U.S. District Court trial over the constitutionality of the state-supported school's admissions policy is expected to last for the rest of the week.
Because of the way men and women develop, a female rat would be more mature than a male rat, "and therefore all the more unlikely to subject herself to the discipline," Riesman said as the trial entered its fifth day.
Could women succeed at VMI?
"I don't see how they could succeed, because they're not capable of the ferocity requisite to make the program work," he said. And he fears some women could experience psychological trauma if they went through the program.
He also said men and women have different needs in education. "Men need discipline. . . . Men need to be in an environment where their tricks and games . . . are of no avail."
Over the years, schools have been moving away from single-sex status. "There is an unfortunate homogenizing impulse which is very strong," he said. But the schools serve a purpose.
"Making everything alike in the name of equality, when equality consists of the ability to choose among various options," is wrong, he said.
He called VMI a "powerful leveler" - the strongest assault in this country on the "rating, dating, mating youth culture."
"I know of no other institution which so reduces the inherited characteristics of students in terms of wealth, position, name, ethnicity and race to the lowest common denominator, the rat."
VMI is a school where the rich are treated just as badly as the poor, blacks as badly as whites. "And I think that this is a wonderful contribution of VMI."
He said VMI has a lower attrition rate for black men than other colleges in the state.
In a world of education where many young people are satisfied with just "getting by," Virginia Military Institute stands out, he said.
Young people normally don't test themselves, Riesman said. "They don't climb moral or physical mountains. . . . Getting by has become the American norm."
During cross-examination, Riesman said he had never visited VMI and had gathered his information through reading and interviews.
State Sen. Elmon Gray, D-Sussex, the legislature's only VMI alumnus, sat in the courtroom Wednesday watching the proceedings. He likely will be called to testify.
"I think it looks very good," Gray said during a short break. "We've been doing what we've been doing very well for years now. I see no reason to destroy that."
As head of the Senate Education and Health Committee, Gray helped quash a bill in the General Assembly that would have allowed women to be admitted to the 152-year-old school.
The matter should be decided in court, he said. "This is where it belongs."
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser is being asked to rule on the U.S. Justice Department's assertion that VMI's all-male admissions policy violates the Constitution. Kiser has said the losing side most likely will appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
by CNB