Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993 TAG: 9312010335
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY M. CHEH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last spring the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an appeals court ruling that VMI's male-only admissions policies violated equal protection of the law for women. Rather than order the nation's oldest military college to admit women, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit gave state-supported VMI the option of creating a separate but equal military training program for women.
But a separate program for women would not be equal. Already, Wilder's plan for Mary Baldwin has a costume-jewelry feel. Rather than genuine military training, Mary Baldwin students would be permitted to take Reserve Officer Training at VMI, 30 miles away, and they would complete a ``leadership curriculum'' and liberal arts courses designed by Mary Baldwin faculty.
In military education, there is no place for separate but equal. It is a contradiction in terms. Addressing racial segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court understood that equality is more than mere equivalence of physical things such as books, dormitories and instructors. The court recognized that equality includes ``those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a ... school.'' The Supreme Court knew that it was the very fact of separation - given the historical and factual context of race relations and race discrimination in the United States - that caused the invidious inequality.
So it is with military education and training. We cannot view military schools as if they carry no historical baggage. We cannot pretend that military schools and military service are not male-constructed, male-dominated and a centerpiece of male power. A separate VMI for women would be deemed second class when compared with the ``real'' military experience of men. The women would be continually striving to meet a male-created standard, destined by definition to come up short.
A separate VMI might even be deemed very good, you know, for a girl's school, but the fact of separateness would perpetuate the stereotype of the military superiority of men. Separateness would keep alive the standard setting, the symbolism and the stigma that when it comes to soldiering - to the defense of one's country and to one's importance when the chips are down - it's still a man's world.
If military training or education is constructed so that it is a problem for women ``to fit,'' then the answer is to reconstruct the system so that both men and women ``fit.'' Only women and men together, with whatever rearrangements that requires, can define what military training and service are.
Wilder is right: Men and women are different. But that should not mean that separation is preferable to integration. Differences can be accounted for and privacy can be accounted for, all in the context of equal power and equal opportunity.
Men, too, would be shortchanged by Wilder's proposal for a separate VMI. Yes, admitting women to VMI would mean changing some practices at the school. But what would be lost by the admission of women is not the education of citizen soldiers, or character building or achieving esprit de corps among cadets but, rather, particular rituals followed to achieve those ends.
The VMI method of education includes hazing and humiliation of the cadets. The rituals are neither necessary nor sensible. It is embarrassing to recount some of the approved behaviors such as running naked through the showers while some are turned on all cold and others are all hot.
A coed VMI would not only retain its integrity as a military training college, it would give all VMI students the opportunity to learn from one another. They would discover that, despite the broad range of human talent, there is an essential equality which we all share. The women at Mary Baldwin know the difference between equality and betrayal.
\ Mary M. Cheh is a law professor at The George Washington University.
The Washington Post
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