Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 4, 1993 TAG: 9310040043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
"It was a very hard decision for me," said Jones, one of two black members on the VMI Board of Visitors.
Until the late 1950s, a "separate-but-equal" policy kept blacks out of Virginia's public schools and most state-supported colleges. Rather than allow blacks to attend graduate schools at William and Mary, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, the state gave them tuition grants to attend Northern and Western colleges in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.
Reared in Sharpsburg, Ky., Jones went to VMI on a football scholarship and graduated in the honors court in 1978. He is manager of executive support for C&P Telephone Co. in Richmond.
"I prayed over this almost since the time [the suit to open VMI to women] was filed three years ago," Jones said. "I wish people understood better what VMI is about. Whether or not it would change their mind, I don't know."
Jones said he thinks this case is different from the fight to racially integrate schools a generation ago. In making the decision, he said, he sought the counsel of "people who are more seasoned, who are a lot wiser and have more years and experience than myself."
"Even the courts said it was a Catch-22 - that if VMI opened its door to women, in achieving that, it would be losing some of the experience that makes it what it is.
"I looked at what was at stake," Jones continued, "the education, the male-female thing, and kept asking the questions, `Is it discrimination? Is it not?'
"I've been talking with folks - not on the board - noted folks who are more experienced in the struggle than I. It doesn't mean I don't feel the pain, the barbs. I've tried to make the decision based on that and my experience at VMI. Only the future will say if I made the right one."
by CNB