Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON and LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Officials hope the start of such a program at the private, women's college will release state-supported VMI from the snare of federal courts, which have found VMI's 154-year-old practice of excluding women unconstitutional.
The plan, to be submitted Monday to U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser in Roanoke, also was endorsed unanimously Saturday by VMI's Board of Visitors. They met privately for 5 1/2 hours in the boardroom of their Richmond lawyers.
"This was not the easiest session we've ever had, but I believe it was certainly one of the most constructive," said Dr. Harvey Sadow of Connecticut, the board chairman. "It shows how a board can interact in the best interest of the institution and the Commonwealth."
The plan essentially allows VMI to remain all-male, but to become part of a Virginia Corps of Cadets, in which students could choose either an all-male military school at VMI, an all-women's military program at Mary Baldwin, or a coed program at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
The VMI Foundation, a private group of alumni which has bankrolled the three-year legal battle to keep VMI separate, will give $6.9 million to Mary Baldwin to establish the program, to be called Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership.
VMI faculty members will teach the military courses and conduct training exercises, according to the plan, but Sadow said the women may either come to the Lexington campus for instruction or VMI instructors may travel the 30 miles north to Mary Baldwin.
VMI also would share with Mary Baldwin and Virginia Tech the 50 scholarships authorized annually by the General Assembly for free tuition and board, as well as a special military appropriation - generally used to pay for uniforms - that totaled $2.2 million last year.
The amount of the state's payment into the women's program is uncertain. Wilder's chief counsel, Walter MacFarlane, said Mary Baldwin's military program would receive the same per-student subsidy as VMI. Last year, that was $5,600 per VMI student.
While some Mary Baldwin students are upset at the prospect of adding a military component to their 151-year-old liberal arts college, the school's trustees and faculty senate already have endorsed the plan.
Wilder, Sadow and Mary Baldwin President Cynthia H. Tyson, who joined Sadow in meeting a crush of reporters after the board meeting, would not speculate on whether the federal court will accept the plan.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear VMI's case, which left the school to face three options outlined by a federal appellate court: admit women, become private, or establish a separate, parallel program for women elsewhere in Virginia.
"Whether the plan is constitutional is a legal issue for the courts to decide," Wilder said in a hastily called news conference to announce his endorsement, which the court had said was necessary.
"I am satisfied that this plan is educationally sound and will remedy all current discrimination," Wilder said.
He called the program "innovative and constructive," noting that it "recognizes the physiological and psychological differences between men and women."
"But this plan does not propose a superficially separate, but equal program. Such a program would neither provide the unique and equal educational opportunities, nor maintain the present character, of VMI," he said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, which brought suit against VMI after a complaint by a female Northern Virginia high school student who was denied application, said Saturday he could not comment on the specifics of the plan.
"Whatever plan that is proposed to the court must be examined to see if Virginia is providing the same opportunity to women as it is to men," said spokesman Myron Marlin.
But former state Sen. Emilie Miller of Fairfax, who made several legislative attempts to open VMI to women, said the plan isn't "equal in any way, shape or form."
`Why don't they [VMI alumni] just save their money and buy VMI from the state and free us all from this burden," Miller said Saturday. "This is just another stalling tactic - to keep the status quo while going through the courts."
Leigh Farmer, a Mary Baldwin alum and member of Women for VMI, said Saturday that the proposal was the best outcome of all possibilities.
"The whole issue to me was not the single-sex issue," she said. "The issue was equality for training and education of women. Somebody ought to do it. Why not Mary Baldwin?"
But John Paul Jones, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the program does not come close to meeting the standard set by the constitution - at least equality.
"Setting up a separate academy for women is not a sufficient answer under the constitution," Jones said. "There are only two solutions that satisfy the constitution: privatize VMI or admit women on an equal basis.
"Is there any difference between ROTC at Mary Baldwin and ROTC at Virginia Tech except the tuition? If not, Mary Baldwin isn't offering anything which the court didn't already find inadequate when it heard the appeal."
Farmer maintains that "it's the right thing to do," $6.9 million or not.
"The way this program is structured is so ideal," she said. "There's just no down side to it."
Farmer says the program's military component impresses her.
"They are going to have a corps that learns to march and drill," she said. "But the way I look at that is that it's just another type of leadership. It's another form women ought to be exposed to."
Jedwiga Sebrechts is executive director of the Women's College Coalition in Washington. Though Mary Baldwin is not a coalition member, she has followed recent developments in VMI litigation, including the leadership program proposal.
"I think it would be fine to have a program truly comparable to VMI," Sebrechts said. "It's an admirable goal. But I do not think it's good if it's second-rate."
Sebrechts' concern would be ensuring that program funding is comparable to that received by VMI cadets.
"I would like to see a real proposal where women would benefit from all the extras that VMI cadets benefit from, being connected to the VMI network," she said. "It is so powerful and so important in general to the promotion of the success of male graduates. If the program established is truly comparable and provides the same benefits, fine.
"If not, I think it is a mistake."
by CNB