Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 26, 1993 TAG: 9305270315
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Supporters of an all-male VMI now face a critical choice. Will they continue to waste time, money and energy on resisting the fact that the game is over and they've lost?
Or will they begin now to work to prevent the rout of a specific admissions policy from becoming a general rout for the institution?
The signs are mixed.
On the one hand, hundreds of thousands of VMI (private) dollars already have been spent on a defense argument the defeat of which was predictable and probably inevitable.
VMI's attorneys claimed both that (a) single-sex education is so valuable that it demands preservation, and (b) the state's failure to offer women an equivalent opportunity is no big deal. This just doesn't compute, and never did. You can have it one way or the other, not both.
Moreover, alumni leaders continue to talk of VMI graduates' commitment to the cause and their readiness to see things through to the end, however long in coming, however bitter the end.
On the other hand, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court ruling - the one that the Supreme Court declined to review - did not say a coeducational VMI was the only possible solution.
Perhaps VMI could go private; perhaps some sort of VMI for women could be established; perhaps other remedies, unspecified by the court, could arise.
Moreover, the head of VMI's defense team, attorney (and alumnus) Robert Patterson, spoke Monday of a "commitment to preserving single-sex educational opportunities for both young women and young men."
If the inclusion of "young women" is merely a tactic in preparation for new rounds of litigious foot-dragging by VMI, it is deplorable. In Virginia, there is no all-female college in the state system.
Patterson's statement is welcome, though, if it reflects a soberer VMI analysis of its situation than was evident before, and a newfound good faith on VMI's part to help remedy the problem rather than deny its existence.
There is a kicker. Coeducation, the answer that seems to drive the VMI folks highest up the wall, may not be the only possible answer - but for fiscal and other reasons, it's the most obvious answer. The military service academies, the most obvious example, have adjusted to the reality that the Virginia institution still resists.
The prospective test for VMI continues to loom, larger after Monday than ever: Is the school defined by its maleness, or is there more about VMI worth saving than just a men-only admissions policy that now seems beyond rescue?
by CNB