Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 28, 1993 TAG: 9309280245
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Only two days before, the board of Virginia Military Institute - the nation's only other all-male, state-supported university - had voted to start a women's program at Mary Baldwin College to satisfy a ruling from the same court.
Three judges from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sharply questioned lawyers for The Citadel about how dangerous it would be for Shannon Faulkner to sit in on classes at the school in Charleston, S.C.
Faulkner was admitted to the 150-year-old institution earlier this year after concealing her gender on admission forms. When she eventually was denied admission, she sued; a federal judge ordered that Faulkner be allowed to attend classes as a day student until the case is heard.
The Citadel appealed, and the 4th Circuit blocked the judge's order until it could hear Monday's arguments.
"What's going to be the harm to male students to have a female sitting in class with them?" asked Judge Kenneth K. Hall. When Citadel cadets attend classes on other campuses, Hall said, "don't they sit with females?"
"On special, limited occasions," said Morris D. Cooke Jr., a lawyer for The Citadel.
"How do you protect them from harm there?" Hall said.
"The difference is . . . [the cadet] is aware that he's leaving The Citadel," Cooke said. "It's not the purpose of The Citadel or any other single-gender institute to pretend that the other gender doesn't exist. . . . The single-gender environment creates an ethos which individuals identify with the institution, and the institution is then able to inculcate values into them."
Cooke was joined in his argument by former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, who also argued on behalf of VMI, and by a lawyer representing the state of South Carolina, Bobby Hood.
Hood argued that The Citadel's case is different from VMI's, because the South Carolina legislature has adopted policies to justify public support of the school. Those policies include offering diversity and choice in education.
Virginia officials, in contrast, opted to stay out of proceedings in the VMI case, allowing the VMI Foundation to argue on the school's behalf.
Faulkner's lawyers argued that there is no diversity in South Carolina when the state offers neither military nor single-sex education to women.
The judges offered no timetable on making a ruling in the case but pledged to act quickly.
by CNB