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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 1, 1993                   TAG: 9306010232
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CO-EDS?

THE DEFENSE of Virginia Military Institute's males-only admissions policy has failed. VMI - or, more precisely, the state of Virginia, VMI's owner and operator - must come into compliance with the U.S. Constitution. Either the males-only policy or its context must change.

Most VMI alumni presumably would prefer changing the context to changing the policy. But the specific context changes suggested by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as acceptable possibilities - transformation of VMI into a private institution, perhaps, or establishment of a VMI for women - seem impractical.

The court also noted that other, more creative remedies might do the job. The judges, though, could think of none worth specifying in their ruling. And the latest, sagging trial balloon - a bailout of VMI by Virginia Tech's coeducational Corps of Cadets - may not bring up the males-only policy to constitutional snuff.

Granted, it's not clear precisely how much like VMI a new or altered program elsewhere must look in order to qualify as an equivalent higher-education opportunity for women. We've been through separate-but-equal defenses before, and they're hard to justly sustain. But given the arguments and evolution of this case, it might be that - for VMI to continue to offer a single-sex education for males - an equivalent elsewhere would have to be a single-sex program for females.

Making its Corps of Cadets female-only is no more acceptable to Tech than would be a return to single-sex status for any state college or university in Virginia, all of which but VMI are now coeducational.

This option might be acceptable to VMI, of course. But what's acceptable to VMI has become, for good or ill, less relevant. It is VMI's policy, not Tech's or other state schools', that's causing the headache. The key issue now isn't even what's acceptable to the commonwealth of Virginia, though that is important. The question is: What's needed to meet the requirements of the U.S. Constitution?

by CNB