Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991 TAG: 9104120436
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As the trial closed Thursday in U.S. District Court, there was much talk about the rigorous experience of rats, or freshmen at VMI, as there has been for the past six days.
But it could be six weeks before officials know just how high the rat will rank on the endangered species list. That is how long lawyers expect it will take for U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser to sift through the volumes of information on this case and rule on whether the admissions policy is constitutional.
"I was thinking of how wonderful it would be if the Department of Justice afforded VMI the same consideration that the EPA or Department of the Interior affords the spotted owl or the six-legged salamander," Robert Patterson, an alumnus of the school, said in his deep, gravelly voice.
Patterson, a Richmond lawyer representing VMI, has accused the government of picking on the 1,300-cadet, state-supported school.
While the government has said all through this case that VMI's uniqueness is the very reason women should be given the opportunity to go there, the defense has said the addition of females would make the school "just like everyone else."
"VMI is a fine school, and that is precisely the point," the U.S. Justice Department's Judith Keith said. "It's an opportunity that should be open to anyone without regard for gender."
Keith said the all-male tradition is an element of VMI that is a denial of the law. "And it must fall."
Griffin Bell, a former U.S. attorney general who is also representing VMI, said the all-male policy is crucial to the school's mission of producing citizen soldiers, leaders who stand ready to defend their country in a time of need, and that there has been no violation of the Equal Rights Act of 1964.
Keith noted the U.S. service academies have been admitting women - with success - since 1976.
Bell said that although VMI accepts state funding, so do most of the country's private schools, at least indirectly. And if the judge rules in favor of the Justice Department, single-sex education will be in danger nationwide.
"If the Justice Department is going to say every single-sex school is doing something wrong, can't exist, we have a policy that is all sail and no anchor," Bell said.
VMI, located in Lexington, and The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., are the last two all-male military colleges in the United States, public or private. Whatever fate befalls VMI likely will befall The Citadel, and alumni at that school are watching this case carefully.
They will be waiting for a long time. Kiser has predicted that his courtroom in the Poff Federal Building is merely a first stop for this case and that the loser will take it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The Justice Department refused comment on the question, but Patterson said VMI would appeal if it lost.
As the trial ended Thursday, Patterson walked through the courtroom, pumping hands and accepting slaps on the back from many alumni who had turned out to see this case through.
The case, in the government's eyes, was a simple one, based strictly on the Constitution.
"Women's constitutional rights are being denied by stereotypic and archaic notions," Keith said. "VMI fears change and holds tightly to tradition. . . . The admission of women will merely substitute one type of diversity for another."
She said admission of women will not destroy VMI's mission, as defense witnesses have claimed it would. "No argument has been made or could be made that women have not had successful civil careers. And certainly as citizens, women are on equal footing with men."
Witnesses for both sides have said that the admission of women would change VMI. School officials and alumni worry about what that change could do to the institution.
"But that change does not mean the end of tradition," Keith said in her closing arguments. "In the end, VMI will offer its unique opportunity to all."
By creating a "new VMI," Patterson said, students will get the same type of military education they can find at Virginia Tech, which has a corps of military cadets.
He urged the judge to listen to the military witnesses that had passed through the courtroom. "They understand VMI," he said. "They know what it takes to produce a soldier and produce a man."
Lawyers for the defense have also argued that the school would not be able to find enough women who would want to attend VMI, and also that of the 6 million women in college in the United States, fewer than 300 are receiving military educations.
An admissions officer said during the trial that 346 women had expressed interest in the school over the past two years. "But VMI has ignored them," Keith said.
Josiah Bunting, a former president of Hampden-Sydney College in Prince Edward County, testified Thursday that VMI could not come close to getting the "critical mass" of women the school would need to be successful as a coed institute. Bunting said he thought the school would need to have an enrollment at least 40 percent female - about 520 cadets - to achieve that critical mass.
To put women into the situation as it is now "would be a brutal disservice to young women," Bunting said.
He said the state would be "very, very foolish," not to cherish what VMI gives it: honorable men.
When the arguments were over, members of the Justice Department, too, shook hands with witnesses and opposing attorneys, smiling more often than they had in the courtroom all week.
"The government counsel has been somewhat like the visiting team - in hostile territory," Kiser said before dismissing court for the day.
by CNB