THE PARADE SPURNED VMI REMAINS OUT OF STEP

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 6, 1993                   TAG: 9301060301
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
THE PARADE SPURNED VMI REMAINS OUT OF STEP
PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL parades offer opportunities for young Americans to strut their stuff for the watching world. So it was regrettable that Virginia Military Institute's request to participate in this year's event was turned down by President-elect Bill Clinton's parade organizers.
It was also predictable - given VMI's 154-year-old policy of excluding women.
VMI cadets are reportedly disappointed. Because the school's marching unit has participated in nearly every inaugural parade since the end of World War II, they might have assumed tradition would carry the day. But they may still learn from rejection: that no tradition is guaranteed to last forever.
An underlying theme of Clinton's presidential campaign and of his cabinet appointments has been gender, racial and ethnic inclusiveness. The inaugural theme is "An American Reunion - New Beginnings, Renewed Hope."
Typical political stuff, but still a grand vision.
The inaugural committee says the school's legal battle to defend its all-male admissions policy was not behind the band's exclusion. But to showcase VMI - which, a federal-court decision notwithstanding, clings desperately to a discriminatory tradition - would seem retrograde and in conflict with Clinton's chosen direction of leadership. VMI, sad to say, is out of step.

BRIEFLY PUT . . . IF THE UNITED States wants to share the burden of being the world's policeman - without encouraging the disastrous remilitarization of Germany and Japan - it makes sense to look to the United Nations.
So add the following to the incoming administration's early agenda: Promote efforts to strengthen the United Nations' peace-keeping forces, and to extend its capacity for conflict-resolution. Of course, it would help, too, if the Clinton administration would move quickly to repay U.S. debts to the United Nations.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB