Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993 TAG: 9303290416
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed last week, Hollins, Sweet Briar and Randolph-Macon colleges are joined by Wells College in New York in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to accept the VMI case for review, and to use the case to uphold the constitutionality of single-sex education for women. In a separate brief, Mary Baldwin College in Staunton and two-year Southern Virginia College for Women (formerly Southern Seminary) in Buena Vista are joined by two-year Saint Mary's College of Raleigh, N.C., in making a similar request.
The move is a gamble.
On the one hand, the VMI case may have raised a measure of uncertainty about the constitutional status of women's colleges. Can they deny admission to men and, without violating the Constitution's equal-protection clause, benefit from such indirect forms of public assistance as subsidized student loans and the tax deductibility of gifts to their endowments?
On the other hand, the three (and virtually all other women's colleges) are private institutions, unlike VMI.
The fact that VMI is part of a state-owned and -operated system lay at the heart of the ruling last fall by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and properly so. The state cannot operate a system that gives men an opportunity for a single-sex, VMI-like education, the appeals court said, without offering a parallel opportunity for women.
The 4th Circuit's recognition of a public-private distinction doesn't have the strength of a Supreme Court opinion. It is, however, the law as of the moment. There already is a 1982 high-court precedent upholding the women's colleges' position. Only if the high court decides not to review the VMI case, is there any guarantee that the distinction will stick. Stick for a while, anyway.
In theory, the Appeals Court ruling might be construed a partial victory for VMI. In practice, fiscal considerations alone make very improbable the notion of establishing a new state college in Virginia for women only. Hence VMI's appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Appeals Court ruling was sound and reasonable, and should be upheld. But if the Supreme Court must fiddle with it, and particularly with any implications for women's colleges, let's hope the important public-private distinction doesn't get lost in the music.
by CNB